


The Burn of Brilliant Stars

by luchia



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: (but it's SPACE politics!!!!), Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Force Ghosts, Force Sensitivity, M/M, Naboo Politicians AU, it's a sports anime where that sport is now politics so expect that same screentime ratio folks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-12 12:13:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9071128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luchia/pseuds/luchia
Summary: It is a time of uncertainty throughout the galaxy. Rebel forces have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire, and Civil War is on the horizon. On the the sinister Emperor Palpatine's home planet of Naboo, any act of rebellion or sedition is deadly, and the people are closely monitored - the government most of all.The annual election for Monarch of Naboo is almost complete, and candidate Yuuri Katsuki faces the results of competing against the peerless decade-reigning King Nikiforov....





	1. Where Your Destiny Lies

**Author's Note:**

> okay so star wars timeline is gonna put you at episode iv/a new hope, and this pretty much starts right at the end of rogue one (not that anybody in the story knows that). there's oodles of mistakes for star wars universe things, i have no doubt, but i concentrated on making up the naboo star system's ludicrous _elected monarchy_. i'm in it for my otp's sappy pining while wearing elaborate regalia and being passive aggressive at darth vader, okay, i have simple needs here.
> 
> WARNING: this fic deals with being in control of a small planet occupied and policed by an evil speciesist/racist sith emperor and all the horrible things which go with it. the empire is literally space nazis, they've always been space nazis, and i'm writing them that way.
> 
> (also it's agonizingly exposition-heavy at the start, but stick with it, friends, really truly. it'll be worth it. i promise.)

Yuuri doesn’t need the full twenty hours of vote-tallying to know he’s failed.

He’s trained his entire life to be here, standing in front of one of Theed Palace’s great windows, his face coated in white paint and reflecting back at him. He isn’t permitted the Scar of Remembrance on his lip, or the two red dots on the Monarch’s cheeks which are both meant to signify blood, tears, rage, and blushing, all in one tiny circle. That’s only natural, considering he’s a competitor for the title rather than being the King. And besides, even King Nikiforov himself has to do away with the royal markings for competition.

The rest of the candidates and courtiers and generally anyone relevant to Naboo’s government stand in the Great Atrium of the palace, watching voting results which Yuuri already knows will lead King Nikiforov to his fifth term as Monarch of Naboo, and ten years of rule. Yuuri also knows he’ll be absolute last in rankings, because he has _failed_ , he’s failed completely, he choked on his oral exam and he got knocked unconscious during the martial testing and his speech was so full of anxious stuttering that it’s barely comprehensible in the recording.

So here he is, staring out at Theed, dressed in the blue faux regalia Celestino chose for him, wiping the makeup off with a furious fervor that leaves his skin a bright burning red and his handkerchief stained white. He failed, he _choked_ , and Celestino is talking about things they can improve about his performance, like he’s going to try again. Like he’s even _capable_ of trying again. And _stars_ , but he tried. Yuuri actually _tried_ , and that’s the part that burns inside him.

Yuuri leaves Celestino and heads off to change back into his normal clothes in one of the receiving chambers. He finds himself staring down at the intricate scrollwork on the robes, and the tiny _inexcusable_ smudges of white around the neckline – he knows better than that, or he thought he did at least. And everyone in Hasetsu saw it, they probably even voted for him out of obligation, and his parents, oh, his _parents_ , his family, everyone he’s ever met…

He tries to hold back to tears, but in the back of his head he hears one of the infinite number of King Nikiforov quotes he’s memorized, delivered with a laugh in his voice and a smile on his lips, “ _Tears are unbecoming of a Monarch of Naboo, you’ll smudge your makeup at the very least!”_

To think Yuuri actually imagined he could ever even _compete_ with the amazing man who’s managed to hold on to the Monarchy for a decade when the average Monarch is about _eighteen_ is…appalling. Who was he fooling? Who was he lying to? Above all, it was Yuuri lying to himself, pretending that he could _ever_ do this.

Yuuri wipes at his eyes, and the ugly sobs start bubbling up no matter how tightly he presses his hands over his mouth.

He thinks he’s being quiet, but that’s another mark on his infinite tally of failures because a boy with blond hair and the small forehead blossom of makeup that signifies the Prince of Theed comes slamming his way into the room, snarling out all the things Yuuri is already painfully aware of.

“Naboo doesn’t need two Yuris,” Yuri Plisetsky sneers at him, among other things, and stomps back out of the room.

It takes a while for Yuuri to get himself back together, and his eyes are still red, and it’s _so_ obvious he cried like a little baby, but Celestino doesn’t comment on it when Yuuri emerges. No, Celestino focuses on leading Yuuri out of the royal palace with amiable words about _trying again, we know what we need to work on_ , comments that make Yuuri want to scream, even in the echoing chamber that is the Great Atrium.

And in the Monarch’s seat of power, there he is, already back in true regalia with that shiny silver hair tied up in a comparatively simple headdress. It’s impossible to not stop and stare as the sunset glints gold across his hair and the jewels embedded in his robes. It leaves warm shadows across the Monarch’s bleach-white makeup, and for a rare moment, King Nikiforov looks…touchable, like there really is a human beneath the Monarchy.

As ever, King Nikiforov is surrounded by his handmaidens (although gender really isn’t a _thing_ when it comes to the handmaidens, they’re called _maidens_ regardless of gender, it’s just the name of the job). One of them must point Yuuri out because with the jingle of chimes in his hair, King Nikiforov turns to see Yuuri there staring at him like an idiot.

The King gives him a smile and a wave, saying, “Would you like an autograph?”

It is agonizing proof that King Nikiforov of Naboo has absolutely no clue who Yuuri is.

He turns and speedwalks out of the Palace.

Yuuri never should have tried in the first place.

\----

Yuuri loses his Dukedom in his planetary district. He loses his Barony in his local district. He barely finishes his advanced politics degree in Theed, and the rest of his tenure as Duke of Harte Secur passes in a blur of vague adequacy and as minimal policy impact as he can make because he’d just screw it up anyway.

“You’ll get it next time,” Celestino tries to tell him.

Yuuri doubts that, particularly because he stops practicing. He stops _moving_ , really – oh, Yuuri does his job, and he tries his best to keep Harte Secur safe in these dangerous times, but Harte Secur is also the smallest of the six planetary districts and everyone (and _King Nikiforov_ , of course) seems to have everything well in hand, so he…well, he still reads everything he signs, but that’s about the extent of movement.

He occasionally has Celestino bring everything in to his bedroom and reads and signs things while sprawled on his floor.

And then that _occasionally_ turns into _usually._

The press writes a piece about _Yuuri Katsuki, the Hermit Duke,_ and that’s about when Yuuri decides to put poor Celestino out of his misery. The new Duke, Minami something, arrives a couple weeks early, bright-eyed and breathing hard the first time he spots Yuuri (apparently they’re from the same Barony too). That’s also the _only_ time he spots Yuuri, because with his successor’s arrival Yuuri is no longer obligated to be in Theed, so he packs his things up and heads back to Hasetsu.

Back when the Empire was a Republic, Hasetsu was an important human-gungan meeting point, full of hot springs and fishing. But after Emperor Palpatine came to personally _’assist’_ in the mass gungan colonization of Ohma-D’un, Naboo’s water moon, that need for a meeting point was gone, leaving Hasetsu in a rapid decline for the past two decades or so.

Hasetsu is one of the few places on Naboo that doesn’t have a full Imperial outpost in the city, just a guard post staffed by a few stormtroopers and a fat amiable Imperial officer named Lieutenant Verza who has been stationed in Hasetsu for so long he’s practically a local. By now, Verza is so entrenched that he’ll probably never leave.

That’s why there’s no Imperial detail on the pad when Yuuri gets off his shuttle back to Hasetsu. Nobody bothers to care that he’s here. Nobody but his dance teacher, Minako, at least.

But generally, Yuuri focuses on really curling up and trying to not exist. That’s his big goal, now. His dog is dead and it looks like his career is over and he’s already ruined his life by age 23, so at least he’s ahead of the curve on that.

Seasons change, and Yuuri barely notices.

He barely notices anything at all, up until Alderaan blows up.

When it happens, Yuuri jerks out of bed with the sound of screams in his head, the terror deafening to the point Yuuri clamps his hands over his ears, and then…silence. It leaves him too rattled to get back in bed, so he stumbles out to where his parents and one rare guest are already eating breakfast in the central room.

The holoscreen is already going on about how there’s been a disruption in signal, the broadcast anchors looking between each other for a long anxious moment before it’s announced there are _technical difficulties, please stand by!_

The picture blacks out, leaving the room significantly dimmer than before.

“Should we be worried?” Yuuri’s father asks.

Nobody replies. None of them have an answer.

\---

For the next two days, news is entirely local, planet-wide news, not a shred of information shared about the world beyond their system. It’s all holovids and rebroadcasts, with local news sources just as confused as the rest of Naboo.

Then, a couple hours after dawn, King Nikiforov’s speech is announced.

When the Monarch appears, he’s in the blue mourning makeup reserved for only the deepest losses – the last time it was seen on Naboo, it was because Queen Amidala herself had died. That makes it even more impactful to see he’s standing at the great shrine built in Amidala’s honor, dressed in the silvers and grays of mourning.

Yuuri has trained his entire life to read the minutiae of royal regalia, so he can pick out more than the usual Naboo citizen. It all speaks of deep mourning and sorrow, and the white fur collar means the mourned is _a_ _close friend but not family_ , and the modern Empire-related connotation of _family_ in regalia-reading mean it’s not anyone on Naboo. But the strange part is there are embroidered dark red gloves on the King’s hands, and a single garnet stone hanging down onto his forehead.

In other words: someone we love very much is dead, and King Nikiforov personally is feeling like he wants to go after vengeance but isn’t acting on those feelings.

 _“Citizens of Naboo,”_ King Nikiforov begins, in the usual regal not-quite-monotone, and then…stops. The King’s gloved hands curl into fists, and Yuuri’s jaw drops as Nikiforov takes a step towards the camera, away from the handmaidens, and speaks like any person off the street. _“I’ve been instructed to tell you the Rebellion attacked Alderaan with a terrible new planet-destroying weapon, which Emperor Palpatine has now apprehended and destroyed. That is a lie. The Empire itself destroyed the peaceful planet of Alderaan, and the Rebellion took out the weapon which Imperial forces used, in the hopes of saving other planets from the same fate. Billions are dead, simply because Palpatine believed there were traitors somewhere on the planet. He doesn’t want you to know this, but you deserve the truth of the world we live in.”_

There’s a pause – brief, but just enough time for his audience to process what they’ve heard and for the Monarch to take a long, deep breath before continuing, _“This is not a call for rebellion, or a call for Imperial compliance. It’s a call for contemplation, and mourning. Naboo has lost much to the Empire, but as they’ve now shown, we could lose much more. We must all-”_

 _“Your majesty!”_ one of the handmaidens shouts (with a very masculine voice), and there’s a single moment of the King glancing sharply to his right before the feed cuts off. Yuuri is left with only the gray haze that comes with a loss of signal.

“What happened?!” Yuuri shouts, glancing around the room, but everyone seems to just stare at the holoscreen, faces blank in shock. It’s justifiable – everything is horrible, and one of the greatest most populated and peaceful planets in the galaxy was needlessly destroyed, and _what just happened to the King-_

The screen blinks back on, and it’s one of the local news stations. The anchor looks helpless as she says, _“We…we appear to be having technical difficulties, please remain calm as we try to find out what happened.”_

Yuuri doesn’t wait to see what else they’re going to fill the airtime with, because there’s an itch beneath his skin, like something is physically pushing him forward. He manages to get into his room and change into something other than pajamas, but with every passing second, the itch gets more and more intense until it’s like an invisible irritant is poking him in the back, trying to push him out the door.

So, he goes.

\---

The sun is high in the sky, which is unusual since they’re approaching the rainy season. It makes the world seem blurry beyond his glasses, heat and humidity twisting the air as Yuuri follows that _sense_ pushing him forwards.

He follows it all the way to Hasetsu’s small Imperial outpost.

Lieutenant Verza is backing away from the growing crowd, and the stormtroopers are coming forward, raising their weapons. Observation droids are floating around the area, taking in the face of every single Hasetsu resident who dares to confront the Empire.

“You killed the king!” someone in the crowd shouts, and Hasetsu is small, and the outpost is small, and it makes the sixty or seventy people who’ve already made it here seem like an unstoppable majority of the city, a massive threat to the six stormtroopers stationed here. The crowd doesn’t seem to take notice of the blasters being raised towards them, and instead keep shouting. “You destroyed Alderaan! You murdered his majesty because he told the truth! You’re _scum!”_

“Stop!” Yuuri shouts, and he tries to push his way through the crowd, but nobody cares he’s there. Nobody listens – and why should they? He’s nobody, just a scared voice trying to shout above the others.

“Disperse immediately, or we will fire,” the stormtrooper captain calls out.

Yuuri _cannot_ let this happen.

The crowd shifts around him, a tide of human bodies trying to drag Yuuri into their fervor, but Yuuri’s eyes are fixed on the cold white armor in front of them. The shouts grow louder and louder, until Yuuri can’t even make out the words the stormtrooper captain is calling out.

Someone nearby picks a stray rock off of the ground, arm pulling back to throw it towards the stormtroopers with a snarl on her face-

 _“Wait!”_ Yuuri shouts, hand snapping out towards the rock, _willing_ it back into her hand with everything he has, thinking, _please, please don’t start this fight._ But even with the rock taken care of, the group is still about to get blasted into oblivion, so he tries again. Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut, and tries to _force_ them to listen, Hasetsu locals and stormtroopers alike. But listening isn’t enough, they need to _obey_ as he commands, _“Stop!”_

Silence.

Yuuri opens his eyes, and it’s as if the crowd was turned into limp wax statues, most of which are watching _him._ Waiting.

He does his best to swallow down the dry terror clenched in his throat and focuses on the fact he’s trained for this, he can do this, and…and he has no idea what to say, but he doesn’t need to. Someone else said it already.

“This is a time for mourning, and contemplation,” Yuuri says, and his body automatically echoes the rest of the King’s speech – chin up, shoulders back, left hand clenched in a (gloveless) fist as his right gestures broadly, forcing their attention to stay entirely fixed upon Yuuri. “We’ve already lost so much to the Empire, but as they’ve now shown, we could lose so much more.”

…and then what? The speech ended early, he doesn’t know what else King Nikiforov was going to say, and Yuuri’s head aches in a way he’s never felt before, and the crowd is starting to mutter, the stormtroopers slowly tighten their grips on their blasters-

 _“Go home,”_ Yuuri orders.

They obey.

Yuuri watches with wide eyes, mute, as every one of them turns and begins to leave. The stormtroopers walk into the outpost, and the captain shuts the door behind them. The streets of Hasetsu are full of silent walkers heading back home, and the only sounds are the buzz of the camera droid and the steady tromp of feet and Yuuri’s rapid harsh panting.

He clutches at his head, at his heart, and falls to his knees. It feels like he’s been dropped off a tall building or hit by a speeder or is suffering from the worst flu of his life. The world grows dim, and Yuuri feels himself fall onto the street before he passes out.

\----

 Yuuri dreams of a star.

Furious explosions of fire and wrath hiss into the void, a roiling mass of raw self-destruction swallowing itself down hungrily only to spit it out again in a flare of power, and heat, and _light_ , and Yuuri is hurled into space along with it, flailing at the edge of its flames.

It’s the length of a skipping heartbeat, a gasp, a _scream_ , and Yuuri twists through the blackness until he’s approaching a blue planet with three moons, and Naboo comes closer and closer until Yuuri can make out details – the great Solleu River that runs through Theed, and Yuuri crests over the great waterfalls.

He twists across the water, towards one of the small shrines that dot the distant bank, and he slows, or _something slows him down_ , and he drifts, now, like a heavy breeze twists him through the air and towards the dying fire within the shrine. It’s still too fast to make out any real details, but there’s no way to avoid recognizing the force is pushing him directly towards one of the cloaked figures.

There’s not enough time, there’s _no time_ , but the figure still somehow twists to intercept Yuuri in that moment of collision, arms jerking out like they’re going to catch Yuuri, and Yuuri sees brilliant aqua-blue eyes that widen, _awed-_

And Yuuri gasps in the burning fire of another star, one that makes the last seem tiny and mild, a red snarl of a monster that doesn’t hesitate to blast Yuuri into space the moment Yuuri is aware he’s in front of it. It blasts him towards a silver sphere clogged with starships, and he tumbles through impossible skyscrapers and drunken laughter and hungry screaming until he slams into a balcony.

He has enough time to look around, see two winged statues, see a tall ivory building in the distance, see the great dome of what passes for the Galactic Senate, and Yuuri turns to see the ghost of a woman anyone from Naboo would recognize immediately, Padme Amidala herself, figure fluctuating between a full Monarch regalia of righteous rage-filled red and loose brown hair and a purple nightgown, but she always stares at that ivory tower with a practiced expression of neutrality that means she feels anything but.

 _“Protect our people, if it’s the last thing you do,”_ Amidala says.

Yuuri can barely breathe, but he still manages to say, “But I’m just…I’m just _me.”_

 _“That’s all anyone can be,”_ Amidala tells him, and turns to meet his eyes, her figure shifting again until she’s dressed in dark blue senate gown, silver wings holding her hair up as she gives Yuuri a small smile. _“And that’s all you need to be. I believe in you.”_

Before Yuuri can reply, the stars take him again.

Over and over again, he crashes from stars to planets and back again – from a red giant to a swamp planet and some kind of hermit creature, binary stars to graves in the desert, yellow sun to a Rebellion base on a jungle planet, white dwarf to one small TIE-fighter tumbling through space – until finally he’s back to the same warm star he started at, and he’s thrown back to Naboo, through the gathering clouds, and through his window and straight into bed.

\---

Yuuri wakes up drenched in sweat, shivering and aching and curled around his pillow, alone in his dark room.

Much of him wants to stay in bed, maybe try to get some _actual_ sleep, but Yuuri manages to get onto shaky feet and grab his glasses – slightly cracked. Not good. The world outside his window is a heavy twilight rainstorm that cuts off any chance of seeing the rest of Hasetsu, so with a grimace, Yuuri stumbles his way out of his room.

His intention is to find someone who can explain what happened after Yuuri passed out, and hopefully find out what happened to King Nikiforov as well, if that’s an option.

Instead, Yuuri finds a dog, or maybe the dog finds Yuuri, because one second Yuuri is glancing around the main entertainment area and then next there’s a big apricot-furred creature jumping towards him. Yuuri barely has time to get out a surprised yelp before he’s on his back, a delighted dog barking down at him before licking at his cheek.

Yuuri stares up at the dog, because dogs are rare and Yuuri’s parents saved up for a good year to buy him one that looked _just like this dog_ , except smaller, and Yuuri absently scratches at the dog’s ear as he mutters, “Where did you come from?”

“Ah! Yuuri! How are you feeling?” his father calls out, and the dog nuzzles at Yuuri’s hand with a whine when Yuuri stops scratching, so Yuuri gets back to that very important task as his father walks over with a smile. “You gave us quite a scare! And I see you’ve finally met Makkachin. Practically an overgrown clone of sweet little Nikki, don’t you think?”

“I do,” Yuuri says, dazed, and manages to get into a sitting position.

“Have you met Makkachin’s owner yet?” his father asks. When Yuuri shakes his head, his father laughs. “Well, that’s a surprise! He’s been at your bedside more often than not-”

 _“What?”_   Yuuri shouts, and it makes Makkachin startle away from him, bolting down one of the hallways. His father just _laughs_ , like it’s the funniest joke in the world that some creepy dog owner’s been staring at Yuuri in his sleep for however long.

And how long _was_ he asleep, anyway? Yuuri glances towards the holoscreen, but all it shows is a commercial for some new drama – yet another _The King and the Skater_ reboot, it looks like. Phichit will be thrilled, but it leaves Yuuri feeling utterly lost. He’s spent who knows how long having vivid terrifying dreams about getting thrown through space, and the last thing he can remember is trying to stop a massacre before it began.

Yuuri turns, looking at his stress-free father, and asks, “How long was I asleep?”

“Oh, on and off for a couple of weeks,” his father says, like that’s nothing to be concerned about. “We were so worried until Victor showed up!”

“Who?”

His father frowns. “Hmm. He said you knew each other. Victor Naberrie?”

Like any other politically-savvy sentient creature on Naboo, if Yuuri hears someone using the last name _Naberrie_ and they aren’t the Monarch of Naboo or Pooja Naberrie, Naboo’s current Imperial Senator and the sole surviving biological Naberrie, he knows that means someone is falsely claiming relation to _Queen Amidala_. That’s as close to sacrilege as you can get on Naboo, so Yuuri gives his father a stunned stare as he asks, “Where is this person?”

Looking all too pleased, almost _suspiciously_ pleased, his father gives Yuuri a bright smile and says, “In the hot spring!”

Yuuri isn’t an angry person, but his indignation keeps something close to a frown on his face as he strides through the inn and the baths and out into the open air spring. The second Yuuri steps outside he realizes this was a _terrible_ idea because it’s still raining, cold and heavy, and rain combined with steam combined with glasses means Yuuri’s close to blind when he gets through the door. He’s still blinded by the rain even when he’s wiped the steam away.

Squinting out into the gray curtain of the evening storm, Yuuri can still make out _someone_ in the water, so he calls out, “Excuse me-”

“Yuuri!” the person shouts, sounding terribly pleased, and it’s a strangely familiar male voice. The figure quickly stands out of the water, but his approach is a casual, unhurried speed. “It’s good to see you’re finally awake! How do you feel?”

“Fine, thank you, now who…” Yuuri begins, and he has every intention of getting to the bottom of this up until he actually _sees_ Victor, because he is _beautiful_ , he’s the sort of beautiful that makes Yuuri audibly gasp like an idiot. And it just gets worse the closer Victor gets, with his face and his naked body and his wet skin and hair and _eyes-_

_Oh._

Yuuri drops to his knees, face burning a red so bright it hurts as he blurts out, “Forgive me, your maje-”

“Victor!” says _King Nikiforov_ , and he drops to his knees right along with Yuuri, fingers pressing against Yuuri’s lips at an inhuman speed. “Call me Victor. No kneeling or majesties, no regalia, just _Victor_. Understand?”

Yuuri nods so fast his glasses could probably fly off.

Victor smiles at him, pulling his fingers away from Yuuri’s lips to instead grab Yuuri’s hand and pull him back onto his feet. “Good! Now, let’s get you out of the rain before you get sick again, hmm?”

“Why are you here?” Yuuri asks.

“Yuuri, I am here to be your advisor, and make sure you’re elected Monarch next year. With my help, trust me, you can’t lose,” Victor says, and _winks._

Yuuri’s internal screaming is all-consuming. It escapes into audible territory with a tiny choked-off squeak as he follows Victor back inside.

\---

Victor is not a gentle and benevolent advisor.

Yuuri doesn’t see Victor much at all during the day, because Yuuri is working out and running through exercise after exercise at Minako’s dance studio and _actually_ running because Victor had grinned and said, “I can’t train you until you’re at least in the same shape as last election!” and what Victor says is literally royal mandate and Victor is _very used to that fact_ so off Yuuri goes, frantically dropping weight and replacing it with muscle and flexibility.

But at night, when Yuuri drags himself back home, there’s no avoiding Victor. He’s _everywhere,_ asking a thousand questions about what Yuuri likes, _who_ Yuuri likes, what Yuuri dreams, what Yuuri wants out of life, what brought Yuuri into public service and politics, always saying, “I need to know everything about you if I’m going to be a good advisor!”

Worst of all is the touching. It’s obvious Victor thinks nothing of it, probably barely notices he’s touching Yuuri’s shoulder while they talk, or has a hand on Yuuri’s back while they walk, or brushes Yuuri’s hair away from his face or…or leans in running a finger along Yuuri’s jaw as he asks, “Do you have a lover, Yuuri?”

That one, Yuuri didn’t react the best. Yelping and backpedaling away from a shocked Victor and out of the room until his back hit a wall wasn’t exactly _composed_ – and maybe that’s why Victor keeps doing that touching thing. A Monarch of Naboo is meant to be unshakeable, so maybe it’s some sort of desensitization. That would make sense. That would make a lot more sense than Victor actually being interested, so Yuuri resolves to be as unaffected as humanly possible (which is _very difficult_ considering how fond Victor is of long naked chats in the hot spring).

And on the day when Yuuri is finally, _finally_ back to his old weight and flexibility, he heads to the gym Victor seems to have commandeered and finds someone else waiting in the empty lobby.

Yuri Plisetsky, the current Prince of Theed, sneers at the sight of Yuuri. “I don’t know _what_ you did to him, but it’s over!”

“I don’t know what I did either,” Yuuri says.

If anything, that makes Yuri even angrier, jabbing a furious finger towards Yuuri. “ _Sure_ you don’t. I’m taking him home before this gets even worse,” he says, and storms past the counter and into the Castle Gym, which is _technically_ still his childhood friend Yuko’s gym but now belongs to Victor in all but name.

The Castle has been a part of Hasetsu longer than Yuuri’s been alive, used mostly by people who practice The Noble Art of Combat as a hobby instead of a career requirement. They have the usual training equipment, agility courses and weightlifting and dummies and the very large mat in the middle of the room for group practice or running through the Forms still painted across the Castle’s walls. But the Castle’s pride and joy is their holo-trainer, where you can program in a difficulty level and the level of physical contact with your holographically projected opponents – it can be anything from a light tingling to getting slammed with an iron mallet.

The last time Yuuri tried to survive a Monarch-level combat test in the Castle’s holo-trainer, he was knocked unconscious in less than a minute.

It’s a little different when Victor uses it.

Yuuri’s been here when Victor’s training before, but it’s still a wonder to see, every single time. The combat portion is technically about being able to defend yourself, but anyone running for a station as high as Count, let alone Monarch, has to do more than survive. They have to survive, and triumph, and make it seem more like an effortless dance than a fight.

Victor makes it look like an elegant ballet, dodging through holograms and ripping them apart with deft hands and confident twisting steps. Yuuri remembers watching when Victor’s hair was long, a silver banner flying through the air, but even now Victor’s hair still floats with every step, a millisecond of memory trailing behind every flick of his chin-

 _“Hey! Victor!”_ Yuri Plisetsky hollers across the gym, with absolutely _no_ concern that Victor’s going to get smacked in the head and _die_ if he gets distracted.

“Yuri!” Victor shouts back, and ducks his way out of the holo-trainer’s radius with no discernible effort. He doesn’t even look like he’s breathing hard. “What brings you to Hasetsu? Don’t you have prince things to do back in Theed?”

“Says the _Monarch of Naboo!”_ Yuri shouts back, and turns to glare at Yuuri _again_. It doesn’t last too long this time, though, and Yuri turns back to Victor with that same angry frown. “You said you’d be training _me_ , didn’t you? So train me!”

Victor just blinks at Yuri for a moment, and then smiles and says, “Of course!”

“You completely forgot, didn’t you,” Yuri says.

“I do that,” Victor nods, and tilts his head to the side, looking between Yuri and Yuuri. “Hmm. Well, I could run both of you through the basics-”

 _“In Theed,_ ” Yuri says, arms crossed over his chest and staring Victor down in a way that would probably be intimidating if he wasn’t fifteen and trying to stare down the King. “You’ve been gone for a month, Victor, and you’re supposed to be _running Naboo!_ Even Yakov can’t keep covering for you at this rate.”

Yuuri wasn’t all that concerned about the inevitable day when Victor left, because Victor seemed so completely unconcerned with the state of anything beyond…well, _Yuuri._ But now, Yuuri watches as Victor’s expression turns pensive, turns _serious_ , and Yuuri knows time’s up.

Except Yuuri doesn’t _want_ him to go, but what can he say? What kind of right does he have to ask _anything_ of Victor? Of King Nikiforov himself? Say _don’t go do your job running the entire star system and come soak in the hot spring with me instead?_

Pathetic.

And there’s the apologetic smile from Victor, the end of something that hadn’t even started. Yuuri readies his response, the reassurance that _of course_ _I understand, your majesty_ , words subtly sitting on the cusp of spiteful with that refusal to call him _Victor_ , but if he’s prioritizing being a King then so should Yuuri.

“Yuuri, how long will it take you to get ready to move back to Theed?” Victor asks.

It takes a moment of staring at Victor, trying to figure out exactly what’s happened in the past few seconds that Yuuri spent staring at the floor and feeling like an idiot instead of following whatever he so obviously missed. “What?”

“You haven’t unpacked much, so that wouldn’t take too long. I’ve seen your room, after all. But there’s probably other arrangements you’d need to make before moving, aren’t there?” Victor asks, and he looks far too cheerful.

“I’m moving?” Yuuri asks.

“You’re bringing _him?”_ Yuri asks.

“Yes to both!” Victor says. “Yuuri, you’re promoted to royal handmaiden.”

“From what, a _commoner!?”_ Yuri asks. It takes visible effort and a few long soothing breaths, but Yuri manages to calm down. He looks straight up into Victor’s eyes. “Victor, I don’t know what happened after that speech to make you actually listen to Party Duke over here, but I do know _he_ isn’t the answer to whatever bug crawled up your ass.”

Victor meets Yuri’s eyes, and smiles. He then turns that smile towards Yuuri. “You _are_ accepting the position, aren’t you, Yuuri?”

“Y-yes! Yes, your maj- ah, Victor. I’ll do my best to aid you however you see fit,” Yuuri swears, and he would kneel (because kneeling is what you’re supposed to do when the Monarch of Naboo elevates you to one of the highest and most influential non-elected positions on the planet), but Victor said not to kneel, and they haven’t discussed bowing, so Yuuri settles on trying to look as worthy as possible – chin up, back straight, eyes probably wide and terrified but at least Yuuri’s _trying_ and that has to count for something, right?

“Great! But first, there’s a very important lesson that you both have to learn within the week – and that’s how long you have to pack up your things as well, Yuuri, don’t worry about transportation since we’ll be going the same place. In the same room in the palace, even-”

“We’ll be _what?!”_

“-and this is best taught somewhere with no Imperial presence!” Victor says, deliberately ignoring the internal breakdown Yuuri is having about losing even the luxury of a thin wooden door between him and Victor. “So we’ll start on that tomorrow. Let’s go pack Yuuri’s things up!”

Yuuri is a loyal dutiful citizen of Naboo who has nothing but the utmost respect for King Nikiforov. He’s always known there was a person beneath the makeup and regalia, because that is common sense. He didn’t expect them to be perfect or anything, but Yuuri never expected that person to be…well. _Victor._

It’s becoming more and more difficult to mentally apply the _Monarch of Naboo_ title to Victor. It’s hard to gather up the feelings of dutiful respect and fealty that Victor is due.

He’ll work on that.

\---

Over one night, Yuri Plisetsky is renamed Yurio, makes Victor laugh affectionately at least four times, and Yuuri has a minor breakdown over the fact he’s competing for attention with the Prince of Theed and it’s so, _so_ obvious that Victor should be training Yurio instead. He spends the night moving through combat drills until he can’t even think anymore, and goes to bed fighting that same urge to just _give up already_.

But the truth is, Yuuri doesn’t _want_ to give up.

If Victor isn’t running for Monarch next term, it could end up being anyone. Yurio isn’t eligible until he’s sixteen. That leaves Naboo in Yuuri’s hands, at least for the upcoming election, and if…if Yuuri had Victor at his side, they could get Naboo through this. True civil war is inevitable at this point, now that the Empire is so far gone and the Rebellion actually seems to be making progress, and so many candidates are there just to _win_ , not to _serve_ , that Yuuri has to do this.

Maybe it’ll only be for two years, but he has to do this.

He _wants_ to do this.

\---

When Yuuri walks onto the small shuttle Victor rented for the week, he’s barely onboard before Victor is taking off. The flight is short and in complete silence, which is unusual enough for Victor that Yuuri doesn’t need to be instructed to keep his mouth shut. When they land, it’s in the middle of a forested clearing just an hour or so outside of Hasetsu.

They follow him out of the shuttle and through the woods for a good half an hour before Victor finally starts talking.

“First, a short history lesson. Queen Apailana was Monarch of Naboo about nineteen years ago, when Queen Amidala’s body was delivered to us and the Republic became an Empire, with our native son Palpatine at its head,” Victor says, walking forward as if he knows exactly where he’s headed despite the density of the trees. “It was also during the ongoing Jedi Purge, which Apailana objected to, citing their assistance in the Trade Federation’s embargo as proof there was no justification for the Purge. She offered shelter to any Jedi who made it to Naboo, and they _did_ come. For a few months, Naboo was the sole Jedi refuge in the galaxy.”

“Please don’t tell me we’re going to see a Jedi,” Yurio says, narrowly dodging a branch before it smacks him in the face or rips at the pack on his back. They’ve all got one, but Yurio’s breathing harder to keep up.

“Oh no, no, they definitely killed all of them,” Victor says. “The Emperor himself showed up to do it. He said the Jedi had mind controlled Queen Apailana so thoroughly for so long that it was more of a mercy killing than an execution. She was fourteen years old, so the Emperor suggested that an age restriction be placed on the Monarchy to avoid anything similar happening again. Everyone had just watched a bare-faced innocent fourteen year old girl’s execution, so the restriction was amended into the constitution, as well as removing the term limit for Monarchs.”

“Because Palpatine wanted to put a puppet on the throne for forever,” Yurio says, and scowls. “Which was supposed to be Queen Kylantha, except she got killed four years in, and then it was Mairayni, and why are we getting this history lesson, Victor? Are we supposed to be impressed you’re not assassinated?”

“Well…yes,” Victor admits. “There’s a careful knife-edge you have to stand on as Monarch, and even then people _will_ try to kill you. It just comes with the job. And this week is to make sure the Empire _and_ the Rebellion don’t kill you, _and_ you can still do your job!”

“We have to learn that in a _week?”_ Yuuri asks, horrified.

“I’m sure you’ll have no problems! I picked you for a reason, after all, and if you can’t do it then I guess you should just stay here in Hasetsu,” Victor says, and then he’s veering off on a path Yuuri didn’t even see before.

It takes a good hour of traveling down the path while Victor relentlessly quizzes them on the fiscal impact they can expect now that Alderaan’s blown up and the Alderaan-passing spacer trade routes are now debris fields almost impossible to navigate, but eventually they reach a small stone house that looks like it was ripped straight out of Theed. An elegant blue-green domed roof is offset with columns and white stonework, and vines wrap around the building, trees growing close enough to the walls that they’re beginning to bow.

Victor doesn’t seem all that interested in the house, because he keeps walking until they reach a significantly larger dome, this one open-air and overlooking a small lake. Dirt covers the floor, but Yuuri can see there was a pattern there, once, vibrant colors still peeking through the soil. A stone railing separates the stone gazebo from the lake, and Victor doesn’t stop until he’s dropped his pack onto the ground with a heavy clunk.

He turns, and hops up to sit on top of the railing, facing Yuuri and Yurio. He glances between them, considering, and then turns his attention towards Yurio. “Yuri, how did you find me?”

“What?”

“How did you find me in Hasetsu?” Victor asks. “I only told Yakov where I was actually going, and he didn’t tell you. Didn’t you wonder how you tracked me to a small city on the other side of the planet, and then to a _specific building_ in that city?”

Yurio’s eyes go wider and wider with every word, and Yuuri watches as his mouth opens and closes, trying to find some logical response but failing every time.

“I want you to go walk into the woods, get as lost as possible, and then find your way back here,” Victor says, and after a moment of dead silence in the group, smiles. “See? You’re not even worried you’ll get lost and die alone in the forest! Go, run away for an hour and time how long it takes for you to return.”

There’s a moment of hesitation, of _confusion_ , but finally Yurio nods and trots off into the forest, not a single grumble or angry mutter to be heard.

It leaves Yuuri and Victor alone, and Yuuri braces himself for whatever his own strange task is going to be. He’s a terrible swimmer, but he’ll try if Victor says to. He’ll try just about anything if Victor says to.

Instead, Victor reaches into his pack and pulls out a holocron, saying, “All of us have a special trick, but _yours_ , Yuuri, is very special.”

The holocron is a recording of Yuuri, standing in the middle of a crowd and trying with every part of his heart and soul to stop a massacre waiting to happen. He watches himself shout out _stop_ and the crowd obeys, and from this perspective, Yuuri can see how impossible it is. An angry mob wouldn’t automatically obey someone like this, let alone immediately disperse just because Yuuri said to. Even the stormtroopers obey. And when Yuuri sags to the ground, finally passing out, it’s as if a tremor runs through the dirt beneath him.

“I managed to have every other copy destroyed,” Victor says, and smiles at Yuuri with an amused quirk to his lips. “Being king has its benefits. Now! We have to make sure your personal charm doesn’t slip out like this again, because if you’re not in a backwater place like Hasetsu there’s no way we can cover it up. It’d also be useful if you could control it.”

A shudder runs down Yuuri’s spine, and he looks down at the holocron, now nothing but a little metallic block with a few simple buttons on it. “Is this why you want me to be your handmaiden? So I can _charm_ people for you?”

“What? No!” Victor actually _shouts_ , and reaches out to grab on to Yuuri’s shoulders, eyes wide and bright with some powerful emotion Yuuri can’t even begin to guess at. “No, of course that’s not why! I would _never_ ask you to do that, not in a thousand years. Honestly, I hope you never do it again!”

“Then _why?”_ Yuuri asks, and it all comes bubbling up, looking into Victor’s beautiful eyes and his bare open expression of something like desperation, and it’s his _king_ but he only sees _Victor_ and neither one has any good reason to do _any_ of this. “I don’t understand why you want _me_ to be a _handmaiden_ , I don’t know why of all people, out of an entire star system, it’s _me_ you chose! If this is the one special thing about me-”

“It’s not,” Victor says, and his hand moves to rest against Yuuri’s cheek. “It’s _not_ , Yuuri. You’re amazing! You’re clever and caring and so talented in so many ways, you never stop surprising me, you’re…upset?”

Yuuri will _not_ cry in front of him, but it’s hard to keep the tears back because he _doesn’t understand_. Victor’s standing here saying all these things, and he obviously hasn’t spent enough time around Yuuri yet to actually _know him,_ or see what a pathetic failure Yuuri is.

And then Yuuri has the horrible, terrible, very probably _true_ thought that maybe…maybe, somehow, Yuuri charmed Victor.

It explains everything, absolutely _everything_ , from Victor showing up to the _touching_ to the praise and smiles and asking to sleep together and the devotion, wanting to have Yuuri with him even in Theed, going so far as to make him a _handmaiden_ to keep Yuuri by his side.

“Yuuri, come out of your head,” Victor says, and he’s so gentle about it, soft and fond and _charmed_.

Yuuri lets out a gasping sob, and grabs a fistful of Victor’s shirt. “How do I stop it? How do I turn it off?”

Victor blinks down at him with wide eyes. “It’s not a thing you have to stop, is it? It’s supposed to be a moment of mental control or command and then your target’s back to normal.”

“What if it isn’t?” Yuuri asks. He almost adds the _what if I charmed you_ question that’s screaming through his head, but the concerned, contemplative expression that slides onto Victor’s face stops him.

(And some traitorous part of Yuuri whispers, _but he’d be yours this way, and that’s what you really want, isn’t it?_ )

For a long, long moment, the only sounds are the gentle breeze drifting through the leaves of the forest, the delicate lapping of small waves against what used to be a covered veranda. The way Victor looks at him is better suited to awe-striking mysteries of the universe, the contemplation of supernovas and serenity.

Victor closes his eyes, and pulls away, turning back towards the lake as he asks, “When you told everyone to go home, did they stay there forever? Did you lock them all away with your charms?”

“No,” Yuuri says. He’s seen almost all of them walking around Hasetsu at one point or another.

“So you know it’s not a permanent state. You have proof,” Victor says and turns again. He hops back up to sit on the railing, facing Yuuri with a small smile. “I know you passed out and didn’t get to see the end results, but it lasted for anywhere from an hour to half a day. And everything I know about this trick comes down to someone saying ‘do this small thing’ and the target obeys. If it’s too big, it won’t work. You can’t charm people to kill themselves. You can’t do anything that would be strong enough or last long enough that it’d need you to figure out how to stop it.”

It _should_ be reassuring. Instead, it makes Yuuri wonder about how reliable Victor’s information is. There’s a very big difference between Yuuri ordering people to go home and wanting someone to…to _care_ about him. It’s subtle. Persistent.

“It also only works on people who aren’t Force-sensitive, so Yurio and I are free from your charms,” Victor says.

And _that_ , Yuuri can find reassuring. Still, he needs to know, he needs _absolute certainty_ and even then he’ll probably wonder and worry. Yuuri finally asks, “Where did you get all this information?”

“I talked with a few Jedi before Palpatine killed them all,” Victor says, like it’s _nothing_ , and frowns. “You’re right to think I don’t know everything, but I like to think I know _enough._ They taught me enough to survive, to suppress and control it, and that’s my goal here with you and Yurio! Now! To your actual exercises! Come over here, please.”

Yuuri obliges, careful to keep at least a foot between him and Victor.

“See those birds on the lake?” Victor asks, and Yuuri nods. Large white and blue birds are gliding across the small lake, diving with long necks and then whistling sweetly when they come back up. “Good. Your job is to get exactly three of them to come over here, into the gazebo.”

Yuuri frowns at Victor, and then at the birds, and then back at Victor. “But I’ve never charmed animals before.”

“Humans are animals,” Victor says, and shrugs. “We’re just smarter than birds, and harder to control. Think of this like the holo-trainer settings – when you can handle easy mode, also known as these birds, you can move up to humans eventually! Good luck, you have a week, we’ll be switching exercises after lunch, and then after dinner.”

Victor leaves, humming cheerily all the way back to the house.

With a sigh, Yuuri stares out at the birds that do absolutely nothing when he stretches out his hand and thinks, _Come over here._

\---

For Yuuri, mornings are spent staring at birds, and whining at birds, and shouting and birds, and pleading with birds. For Yurio, mornings seem to revolve around running around the woods and finding things that Victor hides when the others are fast asleep at sunset. So at least _Yurio_ feels productive, while Yuuri does nothing but develop chronic nightmares about blue and white birds pecking his eyes out.

Victor readily admits he can’t help Yuuri all that much, since he can’t charm things, but he comes by to try and help Yuuri stay sane when he starts getting particularly frustrated. It’s anything from a history lesson to physical exercise to meditation, and none of it helps Yuuri coax birds onto the veranda, but at least it gives him a break.

Victor always makes breakfast, lunch, and dinner for them, and it’s surprisingly good. He’s not a world-class cook or anything, but it keeps them going and tastes refreshing or comforting depending on the meal, so Yuuri is more than satisfied.

After lunch, Victor blindfolds them and pelts them with little bags full of beans, telling them to _listen outside yourselves._ They learn to dodge and then catch the things Victor keeps throwing at them.

That exercise, they’re not bad at. It’s frustrating and impossible the first couple days, but eventually Yuuri starts to _feel_ something is coming just in time to dodge out of the way. Yurio picks dodging up after Yuuri does, but by the next day he’s catching things, and the day after he’s throwing them back at Victor with deadly accuracy. Yuuri…well, he’s getting there. He’ll get there.

Then it’s dinner, and after dinner is meditation.

“This is the trick I can do,” Victor tells them the first day, and points towards nothing but air. “I’m guessing you can’t see him?”

“This sounds more like hallucinating than using the Force,” Yurio mutters.

“You say that _now_ , but just wait,” Victor says, and drops his hand, settling into a meditative position. “What I can do is see ghosts. Theed has a lot of them.”

Yuuri nods, looking towards the empty air. “So when you said you’ve talked with a few Jedi…”

“Oh no, I meant living ones,” Victor reassures him. “I _can_ talk to ghosts but they aren’t very chatty, not unless I put effort into talking and connecting with them. But it’s been pretty useful over the years, particularly the Monarch ghosts.”

“I can imagine,” Yuuri says, and steels himself for whatever Victor’s making them do next. “So we’re going to learn to see ghosts?”

“No. You’re going to learn to feel the Force,” Victor says, and proceeds to lead them through the most grueling and exhausting meditation session of Yuuri’s life.

Yuuri has meditated before, and it wasn’t exactly fun. Neither is this Force meditation version, which is all about connecting to the Force and seeing where it leads you. It takes Yuuri three days to manage the Force connection, and then he’s spiraling across the cosmos at a blurring horrifying speed that makes him feel like his brain is exploding, and then he gasps up at Victor who is holding Yuuri’s head with wide eyes.

“New rule for you, Yuuri,” Victor says, and carefully releases Yuuri’s head. “Stick to _feeling_ the Force, and not seeing if it wants to take you anywhere. Think of it as saying hello to a friend and chatting for a while instead of saying hello and then getting into their speeder. Okay?”

“Okay,” Yuuri whispers back, and collapses into his little camping bed five minutes later.

Meditation is the easiest exercise by far for Yuuri, while Yurio struggles through it and barely restrains his temper through every session.

And after meditation, they go to sleep.

The house has two bedrooms, and Yurio throws a fit about having to share, so it’s Yuuri and Victor sharing the bigger bedroom. It seems that Victor spends his mornings cleaning the house when Yuuri’s busy staring at birds and Yurio’s running after objects he shouldn’t be able to find, and every night Yuuri heads to bed, the bedroom looks cozier and happier than the one before. Oh, they have separate beds, but that doesn’t change the fact that every day, the first and last thing he sees is Victor.

\---

On the sixth day, Yuuri is once again staring out at the birds, watching them wheel through the air with a heavy sigh. They’re far above him, climbing up and up, and lets out a heavy sigh.

“Yuuri,” Victor calls, and Yuuri turns to see Victor paused in his cleaning of the mosaic. With the house tidied up, he’s moved on to the exterior grounds, cleaning up the gazebo area in particular. Slowly, a beautiful patter of reds and yellows and whites is emerging from the ground. Now, Victor watches Yuuri, curious. “You aren’t giving up, are you?”

“No! No, I’m – I’ll do it. I can do it,” Yuuri says, but even Yuuri can hear how unbearably _false_ the words sound. He can’t bring himself to look at Victor. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Maybe you’re trying too hard,” Victor suggests, which is the least helpful thing Yuuri’s ever heard. “No, really, I mean it! The last time you did this, it was impulsive, something you did naturally without any deliberate action beyond making others do what was needed. Now you’re thinking too much. Don’t think about it, do it.”

Okay, _that_ is the least helpful thing Yuuri’s ever heard.

“Think about how meditation has worked for you,” Victor says, standing up to lean on the rail next to Yuuri. “The connection is there. The ability, the power, it’s all there. But when you _think_ , you can hold yourself back from wherever the Force feels like taking you. It works the same this way, except you’re in charge and telling the Force where to go, which is to the birds, who need to come over here.”

That’s a bit more helpful, so Yuuri closes his eyes for a heartbeat, trying to latch into that connection he’s been developing over the past few days. It feels like he’s poking a hibernating predator, but it _is_ awake, and Yuuri takes that same feeling of _connection_ and hooks it towards three birds still sitting on the lake. He watches as they stop preening, heads sagging towards the water.

 _Fly over here_ , Yuuri orders, not bothering to speak (birds wouldn’t understand anyway), and he knows he’s done it before the birds even spread their wings. He can _feel it_ , and it’s not that Yuuri is in their tiny bird brains controlling their minds. Yuuri is in the conduits between nerves, readjusting to how he wants things.

Yuuri shudders, body going cold as the birds fly above him and flutter down to settle on the half-unearthed mosaic.

“Good,” Victor says. “Now send two of them back to the lake.”

“I can’t,” Yuuri says, hands grabbing at his head and the burning _pain_ that slices through his mind. His body is cold and his skull feels like it’s going to explode. He can vaguely feel Victor’s hand coming up to grab his shoulder, and Yuuri groans, sagging towards him.

Victor doesn’t hesitate to grab him, keeping Yuuri from toppling off the railing and into the lake. “It’s good to learn your limits,” Victor says, and pulls Yuuri down into a tight grip that just barely manages to give Yuuri enough support to stay on his feet, tottering and stumbling back to the house. “It’s like weight training, you have to stretch muscles and develop your ability before you can use it more. Take a nap, and we’ll see how you feel at lunch.”

\---

How Yuuri feels at lunch is braindead, stranded outside his body just enough to eat dispassionately while Yurio goes on about how he’s gotten faster and faster, not only with feeling out locations and objects but also with running towards them. “It’s kind of like the combat thing where you throw stuff at us,” Yurio says. “I can feel my feet landing before I should get there. Does that make sense?”

“Not to me, but I’ll ask about it later,” Victor replies, and Yuuri can tell Victor’s staring at him but it’s hard to respond. It’s hard to feel anything other than the ache in his head and how every move he makes feels like he’s sloshing through water, meeting invisible resistance, the ripples floating through the air. Victor’s eyebrows rise, and he puts a careful hand on Yuuri’s shoulder. “Yuuri?”

“What’s with him, anyway?” Yurio asks, and he sounds irritated, but there’s the slightest bit of concern in his voice. “What happened?”

“I’m not quite sure,” Victor says, and the hand on Yuuri’s shoulder moves to Yuuri’s jaw, gently tilting his face up to meet Victor’s eyes. “Are you alright, Yuuri? Can you hear me?”

Yuuri nods, and reaches to cover Victor’s hand with his own. “I’m…” Yuuri frowns, trying to find the right description. “I’m outside myself.”

“Then come back,” Victor says. He brushes his thumb across Yuuri’s cheek. “Can you feel me?”

 _“Ugh_ ,” Yurio says. “Seriously? I’m _right here-_ ”

“Then leave,” Victor says, and his thumb moves up, running against Yuuri’s lower lip.

It’s like a jolt of lightning, with Victor’s eyes fixed hot and tender on Yuuri’s, a thousand nerves exploding in his lip and in his brain. And something else explodes right along with Yuuri’s brain – he lets out a sharp gasp, and one of the thankfully unlit lights nearby bursts in a shower of glass and sparks. In an unnaturally fast movement, Victor manages to shove Yuuri away from the flying shards of glass.

An interesting tableau is left in the wreckage. Yurio is halfway out of the building but now frozen in the doorway, staring at the light’s remains. Victor is sprawled over the small but serviceable table he’s scrounged up for them, elbow planted firmly in Yuuri’s lunch. Yuuri is slumping onto the floor, most of him pushed out of the chair but one leg still staying up on the wooden seat, a hand clutching at his frantically-beating heart as he gasps his way back to something approaching calm. Maybe. Hopefully.

“Well,” Victor says, and he too is staring at the exploded light as he slowly rises to his feet. “That’s new.”

“Holy _shit_ , Yuuri, you can blow shit up with your mind?!” Yurio shouts, gaping in shock and delight. “That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard! I wish I’d seen it, but Victor was being _gross_ -”

“I’ll be back,” Victor says, and walks out the door with wide eyes focused on empty air, which Yuuri suspects means that air isn’t so empty after all.

Yuuri has never seen Victor talk to a ghost, or seen Victor even acknowledge there’s something he can see that others can’t. Not beyond that very first mention of ghosts wandering the world. Maybe that’s what he does in the mornings, when Yuuri and Yurio are off doing their individual training.

“Seriously, how’d you do that?” Yurio asks, rushing over to help Yuuri off the floor. “I thought you could mind control people, not blow things up!”

Yuuri shakes his head, grimacing. He’s physically present again, yes, but that means he feels the headache again, too. “It’s supposed to be what I can do, but I can barely mind control _birds_. Exploding things with my brain is…well, I don’t know _what_ it is,” he says.

“You should find out,” Yurio says, and there’s a bright excited shine to his eyes as his hands clench into excited raised fists. “Even _I’d_ make you my handmaiden if you can do this again!”

He decides then and there that if (when) Yurio is Monarch, Yuuri will turn him down, just in case Yurio orders him to blow someone’s head up or something equally horrific. Victor swore he’s not going to ask Yuuri to charm people, and Yuuri believes him. Yurio is an entirely different situation.

“I don’t think I can,” Yuuri admits, and blushes. “I don’t even know how I did it. I’m not very good at any of this.”

Yurio nods, and offers Yuuri a hand up, which he takes. It leaves Yuuri not quite towering over the teen, even as Yurio punches him lightly in the shoulder before shoving his hands back into his pockets. “We’re getting there. I mean, you’ve got the meditation thing down, so that’s something.”

It’s so close to reassuring that Yuuri has to run the words through his head two times, and then a third, before he can confirm that yes, that was even bordering on _kind._ Yuuri considers his options, and then glances out the front door Victor disappeared through not too long ago. “I’ll help you with meditation if you help me figure out how to do more than dodge things I’m sensing.”

“What? But that’s easy,” Yurio says, and gestures for Yuuri to follow him out to the area they usually use for the equivalent of blind dodgeball. “If you can dodge, you know where whatever’s coming towards you is. The only difference is that with catching things is that you focus on putting your hand in that place instead of making sure you aren’t there.” He pauses. “You might not be able to do the throwing it back part, though, that’s sort of based off my trick of knowing where things are.”

“Oh,” Yuuri says. It’s not unexpected, and it explains quite a lot, but it’s still disappointing.

Yurio runs him through it nonetheless, and it helps to have someone other than Victor to…well, Yurio keeps using the word _track_ , even though that’s Yurio’s ability and not Yuuri’s, but it’s serviceable enough that Yuuri won’t bring that up again. But when Victor throws something and Yurio throws something, it _feels_ different. There’s more heat with Yurio’s throws, more volatile, almost simmering in the air.

That’s good to know. It’s what Yuuri can concentrate on for the meditation assistance.

It takes barely an hour for Yuuri to start catching things, and only another hour after that to do so consistently, although trying to throw it back at Yurio isn’t working. Yuuri _does_ intercept one of Yurio’s beanbags with his own, and the two collide in the air with a muffled clacking noise before dropping to the ground.

“Nice!” Yurio shouts, which is so shocking that Yuuri yanks his blindfold off to see if he actually killed a bird or something, but no. Yurio looks _proud_ , smiling at Yuuri. “See? I told you it’s not hard. Now, that’s enough helping _you_ , it’s my turn. Help me with meditation.”

He does, although at one point he only narrowly avoids giving Yurio the same infuriating _you’re trying too hard_ advice Yuuri had to suffer through earlier. But in the end, it comes down to Yurio needing to open up, and be patient, and accept whatever the Force is willing to give him.

“It’s like a nervous animal. You don’t try to grab it, you hold your hand open, wait, and hope it comes to you,” Yuuri tells him, and the anger slowly smoothes off of Yurio’s face.

After a good two hours of watching Yurio meditate, Yurio gasps, eyes jolting open as he pants out, “That was… _shit_. That was a lot of… _everything_.”

“Isn’t it?” Yuuri says, and beams at him. “What’d it show you?”

Yurio wipes a hand across his forehead, visible beads of sweat dragging off his skin as Yurio grimaces. “I don’t know. There was something, but everything moved so fast I couldn’t see what it was.”

“You’ll get there,” Yuuri says, and Yurio nods, wiping his hand on the side of his shirt.

Comfortable silence takes the area just long enough to ensure they have no problem hearing Victor’s steps as he returns from wherever he went.

(“Where’d he go, anyway?” Yuuri asks.

“Down the path for about twenty minutes and then a little bit West, probably in case you followed,” Yurio says, because knowing this is kind of his thing.)

The Victor who returns to them has a heavy gait instead of the usual light-footed confident stride, and when he actually comes into range of sight, Victor looks _exhausted_ , like the blood was sucked out of him. Yuuri’s on his feet and running to support him before the movement even registers in his mind, but the way Victor hangs off of him leaves Yuuri unashamed as he turns and starts to drag Victor back towards the small house.

Yurio’s a few steps ahead of them, yanking the door open and holding it to make sure the thing doesn’t try to swing shut on them. “I can get hot water,” Yurio says when they’re through the front door, and the youngest of them all heads into the kitchen to boil water for some reason.

“I’m not _helpless_ ,” Victor whines as Yuuri pours his very helpless body into his camp bed and then pulls the bedding up to cover him, ignoring the pouting. “You were a lot worse this morning! You’re overreacting.”

“What’d you do to wear yourself out like this?” Yuuri asks.

Victor may be whining about this, but he certainly settles back into bed, head readjusting on his pillow so he can pout directly towards Yuuri, eyes closed. “I told you, ghosts aren’t very talkative.” He yawns. “But I got the answers we need, so it’s worth it.”

Before Yuuri can ask what that means, Yurio comes storming in with a steaming cup of water.

Before Yurio can hand it over, Victor’s asleep.

Yurio sighs. “I hate him so much.”

Yuuri doesn’t bother pointing out the concern lining Yurio’s words. Instead, he watches Victor’s ashen hair shift across the pillowcase. For a moment, Yuuri is intimately aware of the blood that pulses in his fingertips, an ebb and flow of potential, and of _want_.

Yuuri stares down at Victor, King Nikiforov, the decade-reigning Monarch of Naboo.

“I’ll make dinner,” Yuuri says, and walks away. His fingers itch.

\---

“Today, you’re learning to _not_ do your tricks,” Victor says in the morning. He’s up before sunrise and serving breakfast at the pink edge of dawn, peppy in a confident way that Yuuri hopes will one day be contagious. “This is the part where the Empire doesn’t kill you for surviving everything else trying to kill you! If word ever gets to Palpatine that someone is Force-sensitive, even his native sovereign, he’ll kill you.”

“Have you actually met Palpatine?” Yurio asks.

Victor shrugs, and finally takes a seat at the table, eating his own breakfast at an efficient pace, more shoveling nutrition into himself than enjoying the food. “Not in person. I’ve managed to avoid his past two summons to Coruscant, but he likes to do an official congratulations meeting every election. I usually get away with holo-meetings,” Victor says, and smiles. “It’s a good thing he’s running an entire galaxy and trying to destroy the Rebellion, or else he might pay more attention!”

“Why do you do it, then?” Yuuri asks, earning an inquisitive head tilt from Victor. “If you know all of this, if you _know_ you’ll end up executed if you’re not careful, why do you risk your life to be the Monarch of Naboo? Why have you done it for _ten years?_ ”

“Any Monarch will have these same problems, so whoever’s risking their life should at least be the best at the job, don’t you think?” Victor says, and winks.

 _“Ugh,”_ Yurio gags.

“You’re free to leave any time,” Victor says, and Yuuri takes advantage of the brief reprieve from Victor’s eyes. When Victor is glancing at Yurio, Yuuri stares down at his breakfast and chooses his next bite with _significant deliberation._

“Just get to the point! What are we learning?” Yurio says.

“How to hide,” Victor says, any trace of humor gone. As the warmth leaves his voice, it sends a burst of cold apprehension through Yuuri. “If Palpatine or Vader or an Inquisitor shows up and you don’t hide your abilities and suppress your senses, you’re dead or worse. Today is about saving your lives if things go wrong.”

\---

The day progresses painfully, not through anything Victor does, but because of the fact it legitimately _hurts_ Yuuri to cut off and hide any connection to the Force.

He never even imagined that it could be such an intrinsic part of himself, something so deeply rooted that every time he slams down a door between himself and that sense of _more_ it feels like he losing an extra sense. It gives him a burning headache and a twitchy paranoia that has him jumping any time someone comes within thirty feet without announcing their presence or standing where Yuuri could see them.

It isn’t until he shuts the ability off that Yuuri realizes he’s been sensing people like this since birth.

Meanwhile, Yurio looks…lost. He stumbles when he walks, pausing and glancing around with a look of near-panic before starting off again, only to stop again a few moments later.

While Yuuri drinks water and takes whatever pain pills Victor can scrounge up from the supplies, Victor and Yurio walk around. They go into the woods, they go around the house, they walk and walk and walk, and it’s the first time Yuuri can remember that Victor’s been fully focused on Yurio.

Yuuri doesn’t like it. And Yuuri _hates_ that he doesn’t like it, hates that he watches Victor _helping someone_ and a part of himself grumbles and sulks at how he feels entirely ignored, like he’s not even there and he never mattered to begin with. Yuuri hides behind his aching head, sulking disguised behind his pain.

 _Pain behind pain_ , that same traitorous voice whispers, and sneers. _You’re pathetic._

Yuuri takes another pill.

\---

When their sunset reprieve comes, Yuuri doesn’t wait for dinner or the others to come back. He gets in bed, releases the self-imposed barrier, and passes out as the Force floods back into him, warm and soft and soothing, like a heavy blanket is being draped across his back.

Tomorrow, they will head back to the shuttle, Yurio sent ahead without guidance as one more exercise. It will leave Yuuri and Victor alone together in the woods, another opportunity for Victor to ask for answers that Yuuri doesn’t want to give (do you have any exes, do you have any crushes, do you want to hear about _Victor’s and no, no, he doesn’t_ ), and another opportunity for Yuuri to pretend he isn’t terrified every time he finds himself smiling for no real reason beyond Victor being there, being himself. They will walk back to the shuttle, and head back to Hasetsu, and then pick their things up and head off to Theed.

After that, Yuuri can’t even imagine what will happen. Something terrible, most likely. Something he’ll start panicking about in the morning.

For now, Yuuri sleeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally the first fic paragraph but i realized that's silly because you can get the basics of it from the actual story:
> 
> Every citizen of the star system of Naboo is given a recording of every Monarch candidate’s performance, which includes three portions: written and oral exam on Naboo’s government and history, martial arts and the ability to defend oneself and one’s people in combat, and oration. The exam is taken only once per qualification (local district/barony, planetary district/dukedom, and then the entire star system) and for the actual voters, everyone is given the straight percentile score with a brief evaluation. For combat and oration, the voters are given the entire performance. This is mostly because the martial arts and combat testing portion takes three minutes, and the oration is up to five minutes. Generally, it’s assumed that the average voter can take ten minutes or so to evaluate each candidate for Monarch, and they keep it to six candidates, so that’s an hour per voter, in the comfort of their own home over a period of twenty hours.


	2. Dancing on Blades

  _“…Please repeat that?”_ the Theed Spaceport Authority operator says, voice cracking just a little bit. Yuuri can’t tell if it’s from the broadcast or the conversation. From the way Yurio rolls his eyes, it’s most likely the conversation.

Victor, still lounging in the pilot’s seat even with the shuttle landed neatly in one of the royal hangars, simply shrugs and tries again. “I really am King Nikiforov and I’ve already given you the codes to prove it, I need the hangar cleared of all sentients and robots and all cameras turned off.” When there’s no reply, Victor frowns. “Is there a problem?”

 _“Your majesty, we have, uh. Non-native security forces on deck at the moment,”_ the voice says, and Victor makes an understanding, almost sympathetic noise. _“I’m – I mean, I can_ try _to order stormtroopers, but-”_

“Oh no, don’t risk a diplomatic incident, I can work this out,” Victor says. “Turn off all cameras for the next five minutes or so and remove any records of my arrival beyond a royal shuttle returning. Understand?”

 _“Yes, your majesty! I’ll get right on that, immediately, and you’ll have five minutes after…_ now,” the operator says.

“Thank you for your assistance,” Victor says, and shuts off the broadcast while he pops open the shuttle doors. He turns towards them with a grin, and stands up, heading towards the door. “It’s time to pretend we’re not worth noticing.”

Yurio immediately starts complaining. “Hey, in case you forgot, I don’t get the royal face paint! My face is _very_ recognizable, and the second we step-”

“It’s fine, don’t worry. Yuuri, make us seem unimportant,” Victor says, and steps out of the shuttle with the ever-obedient Makkachin’s leash in hand. He doesn’t bother taking any actual luggage, or explaining to Yuuri _how to even do that_. It leaves Yurio glaring at Yuuri and following right on Victor’s heels while Yuuri tries to figure out a way to do what Victor is asking of him.

He doesn’t know how to do something like this, but…well, at least Yuuri knows what it’s like to be unimportant and worthless and not worth noticing. The idea of _Victor_ ever being any of those things is ridiculous, but Victor pops his head back into the shuttle with raised expectant eyebrows.

“If it makes you feel better, you’re doing that for added precaution. I have scouts making sure we don’t run into anyone who could be a problem,” Victor says, and offers his hand with a smile. “It’s just more practice, okay?”

Yuuri lets out a long deep breath, an attempt to calm his nerves that _fails completely_ the second he takes Victor’s hand because Victor beams at him. Victor’s hand is cold but still sends every nerve in Yuuri’s hands into a burning frenzy he _knows_ is blushing across his cheeks.

“Will you stop being gross already?” Yurio hisses at them.

“Never,” Victor says, and Yuuri wants to _die_ , he cannot take this teasing, he is not made to survive ‘harmless flirting’ types of people like Victor, so Yuuri hurries past Victor and out of the shuttle. When he moves to pull his hand away, Victor holds fast. Yuuri blinks down at their still-together hands, and then up at Victor, who is scanning the hangar. “I need you to stay close. We’re headed the same place and we’ll be swarmed the second we’re out of the hangar, so this way we won’t get separated. Yurio, lead us out.”

“On it,” Yurio says, back to being all business, and right. _Right_. Yuuri has a job to do, too.

But it is _very_ difficult to concentrate on doing that job, because Victor is swinging their hands a bit as they walk, and it’s hard to ignore how pleased Victor seems by the whole handholding situation, and Yuuri is pleased that Victor is pleased, and Yuuri’s life is a mess and a joke and he doesn’t have the slightest clue what’s going on in Victor’s head.

“Dogs are pretty rare at a spaceport, so maybe just concentrate on Makkachin,” Victor says with a soft squeeze of his hand, looking so warm and bright, like they’re out walking their dog in a park with their petulant teen son running up the path ahead of them and _Yuuri needs to get himself together_. He’s helping the Monarch of Naboo and the Prince of Theed get through a spaceport with Imperial Stormtroopers around. This is not the time to dream up impossible sappy family picnics with _King Nikiforov._

And it’s easier than Yuuri expects, really – he shuts his eyes, concentrates for a moment, and with a twist of his wrist puts the _suggestion_ in the air around them that Yurio, Victor, and Makkachin are just about as noteworthy as Yuuri.

Yuuri watches Yurio skid to a halt for a moment, staring back at them with wide eyes.

“Nicely done,” Victor says, and he’s so…he is so _pleased_ , and Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut to try and get his heart under control. “What? Is something wrong? Are you feeling okay? Is this too much for you to – here, let me-”

“No no no, it’s fine, don’t worry! Really! I could do this for hours,” Yuuri rushes to say.

“You already do,” Victor says, amused, and then they have to actually focus because Victor goes, _ah_ , and motions to their left without even turning his head. “Stormtroopers. Let’s speak softly and walk quickly.”

They speak softly as in they don’t speak _at all_ , and with their powers combined (Victor’s ghosts off scouting, and Yurio wayfinding around crates and ships and people, and Yuuri ensuring that anyone who does see them doesn’t bother to _notice_ them), Yuuri doesn’t catch so much as a glimpse of white helmets in the hangar.

When they’re through the sliding metal doors that lead to either the palace to the right or the plasma refinery to the left (and _that_ is a city zoning travesty that it’s far too late to do anything about), Victor’s prediction comes true. A large mass of guards and assistants and even two suspiciously cloaked handmaiden-looking individuals convenes on their location, coming from both ends of the corridor at a brisk pace.

“Looks like the vacation’s over,” Victor says, and his grip on Yuuri’s hand turns into an unbreakable vice tight enough that Yuuri feels like the bones in his hands are grinding together. Makkachin whines at their feet. “Yurio, be careful about your tricks and get home safe.”

“ _Fiiiiine_ ,” Yurio says, a long immature groan that clashes with the way he nods his head towards both Victor _and_ Yuuri, a gesture of acknowledgement and maybe, if Yuuri dared to think it, _respect._ “You stay safe and stuff too.”

Without another word, Yurio strolls towards one of the encroaching crowds, a few of the assistants and lower-ranking assembly members breaking away to follow him.

Victor goes unnaturally rigid, hand squeezing Yuuri’s so hard and sharp that Yuuri lets out a yelp. “Victor! What’s-”

“I need to talk, please make me look sane,” Victor whispers to Yuuri, eyes fixed very intently on the floor. The crowd is coming closer and closer, and Victor shuts his eyes. “Explain, because I _can’t_ do that. We all know I can’t do that.”

Yuuri doesn’t have to think for long to figure out Victor’s talking to a ghost.

Keeping a monarch’s reputation as _mentally sound_ is a fairly basic (and important) thing to cover when the problem’s a one-sided conversation. He doesn’t even have to try and persuade people they’re seeing something other than reality, which is Victor talking. Yuuri smiles, and says, “Of course you can do it. You’re _you._ ”

“Fine. What does this do to him?” Victor asks the floor.

“Try to focus on your side of things for now,” Yuuri says, and the crowd is more than close enough to see Victor’s looking nowhere near Yuuri’s face, expression tense and bordering on _scared_ – extremely unusual for Victor, the master of intense fiery eye contact. So, Yuuri brings his free hand up and lifts Victor’s chin until they’re looking at each other, and smiles. “Hey. Whatever happens to us, Victor, know that I’m here for you.”

Victor’s eyes go wide.

Yuuri doesn’t know _what_ Victor just heard from his conversation partner, but it leaves Victor blinking at him, strange and dazed.

“Welcome home, friend,” one of the very handmaiden-looking characters in the crowd calls out with a deep voice, drab brown handmaiden robes cut into a deceptively simple-looking style that could conceal plenty of weaponry if desired. The mob swarms through the hallway, and Yuuri and Victor are swept away along with it, the push of people in one direction and then another leaving them flanked by the two robed individuals and floating away in the stream of humans ( _all_ humans).

“We need somewhere quiet and safe to talk,” Yuuri says, scrambling mentally to find some way to have Victor’s ghost conversation seem even vaguely reasonable. “We’ll explain when we get there.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Victor says, bright and peppy in a way that sends warning bells ringing in Yuuri’s head. It’s his _is that what you think_ voice, the one usually followed by getting completely demolished in some way or another. The handmaidens tense too, which is quite frankly the best sign Yuuri’s seen yet that they’re actually trustworthy. “We’re just a little tired is all. Oh! Yuuri, this is my handmaiden Georgi. He’s been with me since…well, as long as I’ve had handmaidens! Ah, that reminds me. Georgi, Maris, Yuuri Katsuki is my new prime handmaiden.”

 _“What?”_ the other handmaiden, Maris, hiss-shouts. It’s another masculine voice. “Are you out of your mind? So what, Gallé dies and your answer is to run off and find the jerk who-”

“My decisions are mine to make, and yours to accept,” Victor says, slipping into full King Nikiforov mode as the mob twists down the hallway and they break into a smaller group, and then smaller, and finally into their own clump of four people (and a dog) heading into the Palace. “Yuuri, Maris is my body double, but you won’t have any trouble telling us apart.” He smiles down at Yuuri. “That shouldn’t be much of a concern, since I rarely use a body double, if ever. But Maris is good with a blaster, and a dedicated bodyguard. Georgi is an expert on protocol and scheduling and has the most difficult yet prestigious personal assistant position in the Naboo system, and more or less runs my life!”

“It’s nice to meet you both, and I look forward to working with you,” Yuuri says, because he’s nowhere near any kind of _royal handmaiden_ level of protocol knowledge, but he does have basic courtesy down. The other handmaidens don’t so much as twitch to look at Yuuri, though, so he clears his throat. “I’m…I’m eager to help Victor and Naboo in these difficult times.”

“I’m sure you are,” Maris mutters.

Victor looks over to Maris while they walk, and holds out Makkachin’s leash. “Take Makkachin for a walk,” he orders, and it’s an _order_ , accompanied with an aura of absolute authority that makes Yuuri wonder if Victor really can charm people. “Return to the royal quarters when you’re finished.”

“Yes, your majesty.” Maris obeys immediately, takes the leash, and he and a sniffing curious Makkachin are turning down, heading away at the very next hallway.

Sometimes, Yuuri has trouble looking at Victor and seeing King Nikiforov. Now, with Victor like _this_ , he doesn’t have any trouble with it at all. He sees the control, and power, and determination – all the things pinned on Yuuri’s childhood bedroom’s walls. But he can also see the dispassion behind it all. Compared to the Victor that Yuuri’s spent the past few weeks with, it’s as if he’s walking next to a man inverted, all happiness and personality siphoned into that sense of power.

Yuuri drastically prefers the other Victor.

Concern leaves him squeezing Victor’s now-loosening hand, trying for a small reassuring smile even though he can feel the blush spreading across his cheeks. _Thank you_ , he tries to say, because it’s obvious Victor is trying to protect him, trying to make this okay. And Yuuri’s not worth it, but…well. If it’s important for Victor to keep another Force-sensitive person around, someone who _understands,_ Yuuri is going to stay.

For as long as this lasts, Yuuri will stay, and he’ll fight to make sure he can stand behind Victor.

He doesn’t know if his attempt at a message gets through. Victor glances at him, a small indecipherable smile quirking onto his lips, and then fixes his eyes straight ahead as they walk. “Alright, I’m back to work.”

\---

There’s no introductory period to being a handmaiden, no training, not even a brief tour of the massive royal quarters beyond dropping his things in the large circular bedroom that Victor _and_ the handmaidens sleep in. Apparently there’s an actual royal bedroom with a nice appropriate monarch-looking bed and everything, but safety is paramount in Victor’s court.

“We change beds every night, so don’t get comfortable,” Georgi tells him, and then opens one of the wooden cupboards on the wall. “This is the only thing that’s permanently yours.”

And Yuuri…well. It isn’t what he expected, but he was picturing sharing a _bed_ with Victor instead of a domed atrium with seven fluffy beds against the walls and a sitting area in the center, so this will do. He guesses. Probably.

After that, Yuuri and Victor are escorted into the wardrobe, which is bigger than most libraries and arranged much like one, ensembles arranged by color and formality and style in cases that are wheeled along on a track over the three-storey room that Yuuri also did not expect, even though it makes a lot of sense.

Victor immediately heads over to a control station, pushing buttons and shifting through regalia displayed as an image and then a hologram. He flips through at a dizzying pace that only someone with a decade of daily experience could ever manage.

Meanwhile, Georgi motions Yuuri over to the handmaiden clothes, where another member of Yuuri’s new handmaiden cohort is waiting for him, already snapping out a measuring tape. “ _Prime_ handmaiden, you said?” the handmaiden calls out, smooth confident female voice directed past Yuuri.

“Yep! Yuuri, that’s Vardé, royal wardrobe custodian and the most experienced handmaiden to ever serve,” Victor says, and the racks start smoothly sliding ensembles around in front of Victor. “She’s a magician with hair and cosmetics, and that’s not even starting on her seamstress capabilities-”

“And the last two monarchs I served were assassinated in front of me, so you’d better do your job,” Vardé tells Yuuri, green eyes sharp and intent on getting her point across. She’s in her late thirties, probably, and when she speaks it’s with as minimal mouth movement as possible, like she’s so used to whispering in ears that she forgot how to speak any other way.

She snaps the measuring tape out, and after a few awkward intimate moments with her, Vardé heads to the handmaiden racks and pulls out a robed outfit identical to Georgi’s. She doesn’t immediately hand it over, though. Vardé frowns down at the fabric, says, “Give me ten minutes,” and heads through a high arching doorway in the wall.

“Vardé is tailoring your outfit,” Georgi explains, and walks over to where Victor is now scrolling through hairstyles and headdresses, making contemplative noises and stopping every now and then before scrolling along again.

Eight minutes later, Vardé returns and only barely keeps back a disdainful snort when Yuuri asks for somewhere private to change. “You’ll get over that soon enough,” Vardé tells him, but points him towards a door that leads to a bathing room with a locking door, which is so very nice to have.

He takes a moment to panic, of course, sitting on the edge of the large white tub and staring down at the robes of a royal handmaiden and _knowing_ he has no idea what he’s doing. But at least he’s knows he’s here for a reason. He’s here for _Victor_.

The idea that Yuuri’s here to support the monarch was thrown out the second Georgi started listing the five hundred things Victor missed and Victor absorbed it all without so much as a single whine. King Nikiforov doesn’t need him. But Victor, the chatty flirty perfectionist morning person who cares so much it hurts to see sometimes, the man who fights to seem sane while ghosts drift through his life, _that’s_ the reason Yuuri is here.

So, Yuuri gets dressed.

Yuuri steps back into the wardrobe area.

Yuuri comes face to face with King Nikiforov, in all his regalia and makeup, and for a moment Yuuri has to grab on to the nearest rack to fight the urge to kneel – handmaidens don’t kneel, Victor _told him_ not to kneel, but it’s…it’s _the Monarch of Naboo_.

“You’ll get over that soon enough, too,” Vardé says, but there’s a bit more compassion in the words this time. She starts plucking at Yuuri’s robes, making considering noises.

Meanwhile, Victor is very much _Victor_ in that moment, hands rising to bunch in excitement in front of his beaming smile as he says, “Oh, Yuuri, you look _amazing!”_

Yuuri blushes. “I’m wearing deliberately formless robes, Victor!”

“And you look great, you really really do!” Victor insists. The pearl-adorned headdress he’s wearing jingles a bit as he nods enthusiastically, and turns to Vardé, saying, “As ever, you did an amazing job, Vardé! Thank you very much!”

“Of course, your majesty,” Vardé says, and starts collecting the normal clothes Victor was wearing before. Yuuri hadn’t even noticed that they’re strewn around the room.

He doesn’t have the luxury of time to wonder what exactly he missed out here, because Georgi clears his throat and pulls out a data-pad, and Victor snaps into an alert dedication as Georgi starts reading out an enormous terrifying _important_ to-do list.

“And finally, General Kovani has been requesting an audience since your, ah. Your vacation started,” Georgi concludes, and looks up with something close to regret.

General Delva Kovani is the primary Imperial officer on Naboo, and the Emperor’s particularly invested grip on Naboo means that Kovani is also in charge of the entire judicial system. In other words: he _is_ the law. He’s the judge, he’s the police, he’s every Imperial investigation team and every seditious execution. Naboo had its own court system, once, but Palpatine replaced it when he still had his temporary puppet Queen Kylantha on the throne.

Yuuri didn’t have many dealings with Kovani as Duke of Harte Secur, mostly because he didn’t have dealings with _anyone_ at the end there. He dealt with Harte Secur’s Imperial justice officers, so he has _some_ idea of what Victor’s dealing with, but…well. There’s a difference between a regional officer and someone who reports to Emperor Palpatine himself.

“Well, I guess I’ll see him first,” Victor says, and presses a finger to his now-painted lips as he nods at Georgi. “Hmm. I’ll need you, Yuuri, and probably Christophe there as well.”

“I assume Maris, the man who is your bodyguard, near-clone, and best bet for staying safe and alive, is not invited to your meeting with an impatient Imperial officer capable of requesting your execution?” Georgi asks in the monotone of a man who lost hope long ago.

Victor shrugs. “Walking Makkachin is an essential duty!”

“And possibly saving your life isn’t?” Yuuri asks, horrified. “That’s – Victor, you can’t be serious!”

With all the royal makeup on, the way Victor turns to face Yuuri is bordering on _scary_ , hiding his expression just enough that for a second, a _heartbeat_ , Yuuri is looking at the cold near-divine authority of a monarch to whom Yuuri is _nothing_ , an ant looking at a god who may or may not be inclined to squish him.

But his eyes are still Victor, aqua empathy that saddens when Yuuri fights back his shiver of anxiety. “You know I can take care of myself,” Victor says.

“Yes, I know you can. But that doesn’t mean you need to,” Yuuri says, and he’s blushing _again_ , it’s so terrible, but there are things that Yuuri needs to do and this is one of them. “I’m – _we’re_ here for a reason. Let us help.”

Victor sighs, hands making an aborted movement towards where he usually has hair hanging across his face. He watches Yuuri for a long moment, and Yuuri does his best to stand his ground, chin up and posture proud and _certain_ , deserving of respect and Victor’s trust.

“All hands, then,” Victor says, and turns back to walking out of the royal quarters. “And we’d better make it a full length in-audience session to explain _everyone_ being there.”

“Yes, your majesty,” Georgi says. After a moment of tapping on his data-pad, Georgi gives Yuuri the slightest of nods. There’s blatant _respect_ in his eyes.

Yuuri drops his eyes and fights the urge to wince. He _really_ hopes he didn’t accidentally charm Georgi.

\---

The receiving throne room is one very large chair behind one very large desk, with a few regular chairs set up like a parlor in front of it, and six nicely padded high-backed chairs stationed around the columns of the circular chamber. Two flank the throne, two flank the main entrance and exit that leads to the grand atrium, and two are at the sides of the room, equidistant from both Victor and the door.

Yuuri gets stationed directly to Victor’s left. Georgi is at Victor’s right, and in seemingly no time at all, Yuuri is finally face to face with the entire handmaiden contingent.

“The two you don’t know are Christophe and Jormé,” Victor tells him, gesturing towards the two Yuuri doesn’t recognize as he settles in the throne. “Christophe is brilliant at reading people and telling what’s really under all the pleasantries – you can lie to him, but there’s not much of a point to it. And Jormé is…hmm. She specializes in damage control.”

“You shouldn’t keep your prime handmaiden in the dark,” Jormé says, and pulls down the hood of her robes just enough to see that she has the same cut and color of hair and skin, as Victor and _slightly_ similar eyes (they’re blue, at least), but there’s no way she could pass for him, considering the scar that covers a good portion of her right cheek. It continues down her throat and into the high collar of her handmaiden robes. Ten years ago, she was most likely a perfect duplicate of the androgynous teenager Victor once was. Now, she looks like his scarred twin sister. “It’s nice to meet you, Yuuri. I’ve heard a lot about you. My name is Jormé, and I’m both a bodyguard and an assassin.”

“She also specializes in travel coordination,” Georgi says.

“ _Safe_ travel coordination,” Jormé says, and pulls her hood back up. “But mostly I’m here to hurt people, at his majesty’s request.”

Victor sputters in his throne, wide-eyed as he twists to look at Yuuri with nervous eyes, biting down on his lower lip. “Don’t listen to Jormé, she’s got a _terrible_ sense of humor! I’ve _never_ ordered – I’ve never even _wanted-”_

“It’s fine, Victor,” Yuuri says, and clears his throat, glancing away. Out of the great windows, he can see the very edge of one of Theed’s many waterfalls, the blue and green beauty of Naboo stretching out beyond. “You, um. You’re losing your lip makeup.”

Victor is very quiet.

“Then I suppose I’ll have to save the day,” the final handmaiden, Christophe, says, and there’s a swish of robes and pockets that Yuuri doesn’t watch. “It’s nice to see you actually need the makeup for once.”

“Thanks, Chris,” Victor says, and Yuuri legitimately cannot tell if it’s sarcastic or sincere. From the way Christophe chuckles, Yuuri hopes _he_ knows, at least. There’s the swish of robes once again, and Victor claps his black-gloved hands together. “Okay, let’s get to work! Everybody ready? Maris? Vardé? Yuuri?”

Yuuri takes a deep breath and nods confirmation, settling himself like a proper royal handmaiden in the chair Victor chose for him.

Jormé the scarred not-twin and Maris the almost-clone (who Yuuri has yet to see without his hood, and honestly he’s just fine with that) stand from their chairs by the entrance and head down to retrieve Victor’s first guest.

“Oh, Georgi, add Yuri Plisetsky to the list of summons for today,” Victor says.

“That puts you at _ten meetings_ , your majesty,” Georgi says, clearly aghast and offended by even the idea.

“Hmm. That’s a good point. Cancel all the ducal meetings and replace them with Yurio,” Victor says, moving from nine meetings to _four_.

Georgi looks to be visibly struggling, fingers hovering over the data-pad. “Are…are you _sure_ , your majesty?”

“Actually, keep Duke Harte Secur on the schedule. Everyone else can wait for tomorrow,” Victor says, and turns to smile at Yuuri. “I don’t think you ever met your replacement.”

With a near-sobbing sigh, Georgi taps away at the data-pad. “It’s done, your majesty. Five meetings are cancelled in exchange for the Prince of Theed.”

“Thank you, Georgi,” Victor says, pleased and breezy as he turns to look towards the entrance again. “Yuuri, you need to whisper in my ear until Kovani shows up.”

When Yuuri starts blushing _again_ , he hears a stifled laugh from Christophe, who then says, “It’s a standard tactic, Yuuri. You’re the prime handmaiden now, and that means you have to help Victor look smarter than he is.”

“Chris! You are _not helping!”_ Victor says, and the pout while he’s in full monarch regalia is so bizarre that Yuuri finds himself more laughing into Victor’s ear than anything else.

“Oh, I am,” Chris says, and Yuuri catches the very edge of a wink as Yuuri proceeds to just…talk.

“This is all very new and confusing, but it’s…it’s not bad,” Yuuri say, and there’s the curve of a smile on his face, which is not the point of this, so Yuuri tries to _focus_ and hey, nobody else can hear. “I’m a little worried I charmed Georgi, by the way. I know you’re busy, but if you could, uh. Help me with control? Just knowing whether or not I’m doing it? It’s still really new to me.” He pauses. “And General Kovani’s on his way up the stairs.”

Victor nods, and asks, “What does he feel like to you?”

Yuuri frowns, and stretches his senses out just enough to feel the room and a little beyond – there are additional guards in the area and each feels like a metal peg keeping a wooden board securely fastened, there’s the hodgepodge of auras from the other handmaidens, there’s the soothing brilliant _warmth_ Yuuri always feels when he’s near Victor, and there, approaching at a casually clipped pace, is what feels like…“Mud, maybe,” Yuuri mutters. “Or a mudslide, specifically. Something slow and dark that can smother you if you aren’t careful.”

“Hmm,” Victor says, and puts a considering finger up to his mouth. “I’ve always felt he’s a bit like a raggedy old cave bear.” He shrugs. “But I always pick animal images when it comes to identifying things.”

“Really?” Yuuri asks, _fascinated_ , and Victor nods. “What do you…uh.”

He can’t ask. He’s supposed to be looking professional and like he’s giving some sort of secret information to Victor, and he’s here fighting off a blush and asking Victor _if I was an animal, what animal would I be?_

“Yurio’s a saber tiger cub, if that helps you get the question out,” Victor says, and it seems like any and all professionalism is _gone_ , blasted away as Victor leans against his desk and smiles up at Yuuri. “Chris is a friendly lizard of some sort trying to find himself a nice sunny rock, Georgi’s a swan with mate and territory control issues, Vardé is-”

“Your majesty, may we present General Delva Kovani, of the Galactic Empire’s justice corps,” Jormé announces, and she and Maris take their seats while the General bows in a suitably respectable manner. He’s middle-aged and dressed in the usual Imperial uniform, heavyset but tall enough that he makes it look like an intimidating amount of bulk instead of flab.

“Welcome, General Kovani. Please take a seat,” Victor says, _still_ smiling and looking very much like Victor instead of King Nikiforov as he gestures Kovani towards a chair. “Thank you for your patience while I was on the first vacation I’ve taken in six years.”

“Of course, your majesty. As a public servant myself, rest assured, I understand,” Kovani says, and takes a seat, glancing at Yuuri as he does so. Yuuri sits back down, expression as still as possible. “It was certainly your due after that tragic situation during your speech. That was the first time you’ve lost a handmaiden, was it not?”

“I’d prefer to not delve into the topic at the moment, General, but yes, you’re correct. She will be missed,” Victor says.

Kovani nods. “Still, allow me to express my condolences. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” Victor says, and there’s a deliberate pause, a _shift_ , and Victor settles back into his throne. “Now. What do you need to discuss so urgently that I didn’t even get to unpack before accepting your request for a meeting?”

General Kovani’s eyes glance towards Victor’s shoulder for a moment, as if he’s bracing himself.

That is not a good sign.

That is not a good sign at all.

“Originally, I needed to discuss your anti-Empire sentiments during your speech. However, the _urgency_ you rightly point out is because there’s been a request for a meeting,” Kovani says, and Yuuri can make out the nervous swallow beneath his high crisp uniform collar. “Emperor Palpatine has always abided by and respected the beliefs and traditions of Naboo. His apprentice, Lord Vader, respects them as well. However, Lord Vader has requested – demanded, really – access to any and all crypts and shrines dedicated to Padmé Amida-”

 _“What?”_ Victor shouts it, rising to his feet and hands clamping down on the desk in front of him.

Kovani flinches _._ An Imperial general in charge of an entire star system _flinches._

And rightly so, considering what Kovani’s asking for.

“The Emperor is from Naboo, and we embrace that loyalty,” Victor says. “But _this?_ I know you’re not native-born, General, but you’ve certainly lived here long enough to understand the sacrilege your superior is _demanding_ we allow him to commit.”

“I understand your position, your majesty. I truly do,” Kovani rushes to say. “But Darth Vader is the second most powerful entity in the entire galaxy, and he will _not_ stop to-”

Victor holds up a hand for silence, staring down at his desk.

Kovani obeys.

“This is an extremely important discussion, and I’m incapable of thinking rationally at the moment,” Victor says, which is quite possibly the most professional and respectable thing Yuuri has ever heard anyone say in his entire life. “Queen Amidala is honored to the point of _sacred_ , and I need to push through my personal beliefs so I can look at this logically. That is not something I can do during this meeting. You are excused for the moment, and you may expect my summons first thing tomorrow morning, most likely at dawn. At that point, we will continue this conversation. If you have any additional information, specifics, _anything_ about this request, deliver it as soon as possible.”

When General Kovani stands up from his chair, he’s already at full attention, spine rigidly positioned like his life depends on how respectful he is right now. It might be true, too, considering Jormé and Maris are out of their chairs with their hands beneath their robes, standing between Kovani and the exit.

“Yes, your majesty. I’ll have everything sent over immediately, your majesty,” Kovani says, executes a bow so deep he’s close to kneeling, and walks out of the room at a brisk pace that borders on jogging.

The man’s barely out of earshot before Victor turns, grabs on to Yuuri’s robes, and says, “I need to talk about things _right now._ ”

It takes a moment, but then Yuuri gapes at him, then glancing around the room frantically because if Yuuri is reading Victor right that means _Queen Amidala herself_ is probably floating around them somewhere. “I – yes, of course, but I don’t – where should we go? What do you need, Victor?”

“Georgi, cancel all my meetings,” Victor says, and starts towing Yuuri out of the room.

Yuuri follows, of course, but calls back, “Wait! Georgi! Cancel everyone _except Yurio,_ Prince Plisetsky. He still needs to show up, tell him to come find us when he gets here!”

He has just enough time to see Georgi nod and the rest of the handmaidens swirling about and probably doing their jobs very competently before Victor pulls him around a corner. Yuuri glances about, trying to get his bearings. “Are we going somewhere specific?”

“Yes, because it is noise-cancelling and private and if the door’s closed and they know I took you in with me then I can guarantee we’ll be left alone,” Victor says, and they’re back in the royal quarters in little to no time.

Victor stumbles his way through a door, and it’s back into the wardrobe room (and Yuuri is so, _so_ relieved that it wasn’t what he was thinking it’d be). Victor makes his way to one of the dressing tables and it’s those ten years of experience on display again when Victor manages to get himself out of the headdress, makeup, and regalia in about the same time it takes Yuuri to realize this isn’t their last stop. The headdress is put away neatly, but the clothes are strewn across the floor, leaving Victor in loose pants and a plain shirt, barefoot, face scrubbed red from getting his makeup off at record speed. There’s sweat on his forehead, and he’s breathing hard, grabbing on to Yuuri’s robes one more time and pulling Yuuri out of the wardrobe and towards another one of the new and undiscovered-for-Yuuri doors.

Yuuri should probably be panicking more when he sees that yes, he was right, it’s the big fancy monarch-appropriate bedroom, but his eyes are fixed on Victor instead. He looks so _human_ , dropping back from Yuuri the second the door is shut and climbing onto the big canopied bed to take on a meditation-like pose.

“I shouldn’t be using you like this,” Victor says, and looks up at Yuuri. He looks so sad it _hurts._ Sad, and almost ashamed. “But I’m going to need an excuse. Now more than ever.”

At that point, the full reality of what’s about to happen and the potential for gossip later truly slams into Yuuri – emotional and demanding Victor drags Yuuri into the bedroom, seals the door shut after stripping, and when Victor and Yuuri walk back out, Victor will probably be looking like the last time he went off and talked to ghosts, weak and exhausted and _used_.

Yuuri blushes so hard it hurts.

But if letting the other handmaidens and maybe even the rest of the world think that Yuuri…well, _wore him out_ is going to keep the Empire from wondering what exactly got King Nikiforov so riled up in a meeting about a dead monarch’s graves, that’s a sacrifice Yuuri is willing to make.

“It’s okay,” Yuuri says, and the blush isn’t going away any time soon, but at least he can smile for Victor. “This is important, and we both know it – or, uh. The _three_ of us know it?”

Victor nods, and points to the foot of the bed before letting out a small laugh. “She’s very glad you’re here, Yuuri.”

Yuuri bows towards the air where _Queen Amidala_ is standing, or floating, or whatever a ghost does. When he straightens, he says, “I’m honored, your majesty.”

For a brief period, Victor keeps staring at that same patch of air, finally turning a frown towards Yuuri. He frowns at the Amidala-air, and then back towards Yuuri again, only to look at Amidala-air one last time. “But he can’t even see you,” Victor says. “Yuuri won’t tell anyone what he hears. I _can’t_ kick him out now, so – I know! But you’re being ridiculous – Padmé. _Padmé_. Slow down. You’re talking nonsense…wait. Wait, _what?_ You _what?_ I can’t – Yuuri! Yuuri, yes, I’m actually talking to you now, I know it’s confusing.”

“Right! I’m here! What do you need?” Yuuri asks, and he’s ready for anything because he has no idea what might help with this.

“I need to connect to her so I can actually understand what she’s saying. None of it makes any sense right now! I don’t even know if it’s the communicating part or the actual information she’s trying to get across,” Victor says, and runs a hand through his hair, groaning in frustration. “I’m getting nonsense about _Vader babies_ or something. So I need to latch on to her Force ghost, and this is where people think I’m dying or having a seizure or mentally endangered somehow, and none of those things are happening. It’s Queen Amidala, and she’s not going to hurt me. Okay?”

“Okay, but what do you need from me? How can I help?” Yuuri asks.

Victor looks legitimately stunned by the offer, blinking up at Yuuri with something close to wonder in his eyes. “I don’t know. I’ve never had help before.”

It makes sense, of course, considering how dangerous any sort of Force sensitivity would be if the wrong people found out about it, but it still hurts to hear. When Yuuri finally had to deal with his abilities, Victor was already there and waiting to help him with it. He’s _never_ been alone with this, never had to keep it a secret for however long it’s been since Victor had someone to talk to about his abilities other than ghosts.

Any lingering question of why Victor wants him here vanishes when he looks into Victor’s eyes, a shining aqua blue that stare back at Yuuri like he’s a savior Victor never dared to hope for. It’s vulnerable, and it’s _humbling_ , and there’s that traitorous corner of Yuuri’s mind that wraps around his heart, possessive and burning.

The feeling only gets worse when Victor’s hand reaches out towards Yuuri, hovering in the air between them for the length of one infinite heartbeat. Yuuri watches, and waits, and _waits_ , an agony of anticipation.

It drops.

Victor’s palm presses into the pale sheets of the huge bed, and he shifts, sliding up to the headboard.

“Help by training,” Victor says, and starts piling all the decorative pillows into a pile he then flops on top of, staring up at the canopy. “You need to stay in shape, increase your stamina, work on recitation – you _really_ need to work on that one. There should be a data-pad in one of the cupboards, so pull up Sariti Lane’s treatises and memorize at least two of them. I’ll have you recite them while doing pushups when I’m back.”

And Yuuri is…angry? Hurt? Disappointed? It’s a bitter heavy sludge of an emotion that Victor is shoving down his throat. But it settles, just like everything settles – cold, weighing him down, just one more ache in his chest.

It’s fine. What could he have done anyway?

“Right,” Yuuri sighs out, nods, and seeks out the data-pad.

There’s only the sound of opening and closing cupboards for an awkward period of time, Yuuri shifting from door to drawer to drawer hunting down his _homework._ And maybe he slams a drawer a little bit, but it’s only once, nothing he can’t pass off with a muttered apology.

 _“Or_ you could come up here, with me,” Victor says, and Yuuri turns to look over his shoulder in confusion. Victor’s sprawled out on his pillows, face tilted towards the canopy ceiling but with an arm over his eyes, like he’s avoiding the midday light coming through the windows planted nearly at the ceiling. “It might help to have an anchor.”

“How would I be anchoring you?” Yuuri asks. He starts working his way out of the heavy over-robes of his handmaiden outfit, and he’s down to the simple and conservative ensemble beneath it before Victor even considers replying, apparently. So, he tries again, moving onto the edge of the bed. “You need to tell me what to do.”

Victor is dead silent.

For a moment, Yuuri panics, thinking that whatever ghost discussion Victor’s involved in has gone horribly wrong and killed him. He tosses the data-pad towards the baseboard, and clambers across the oversized mattress, finally hovering over the now near-panting Victor and saying, “Victor? Are you okay?”

There’s sweat across his forehead again, a hitch in his shallow rapid breaths, and Yuuri pulls Victor’s arm away from his eyes to see they’re squeezed shut, but his eyelashes flutter open and shut from the twitch of his eyes.

“Victor!” Yuuri shouts, frantic, moving to try and shake him awake, but stops with his hands latched on to Victor’s shoulders because…this is the _entire point_ , isn’t it? This is the reason they’re in this bedroom and not going through the other meetings.

He shouldn’t interfere, shouldn’t get in the way of the original plan. But at the same time, Victor looks like he’s suffering, face twisting into expressions of pain.

Yuuri doesn’t know what to do.

He looks down at Victor, relaxes his grip on Victor’s shoulders, and still doesn’t know what to do.

A deep shudder runs through Victor, so powerful it travels up Yuuri’s arms, and Yuuri doesn’t know how much time he loses between the shudder and Victor grabbing him, because he was too busy staring at the tilted curve of Victor’s throat and the tiny drops of sweat accumulating near his jaw because Yuuri is a _terrible person_ who needs to get his priorities straight. But here he is, staring at Victor’s skin like a creep, and then Victor’s arms reach up and wrap around him, dragging Yuuri down into a tight hug, pressed against Victor’s chest and frantically beating heart.

Victor smells like freshly-laundered clothing and the faint tang of alcohol from his rapid makeup removal, and he’s warm, curling into Yuuri as he breathes out, “Stay close to me.”

“Okay,” Yuuri says, and he can do that. He can definitely do that.

Yuuri situates himself as best he can in the little pillow fort Victor had been assembling, tangled deeper in Victor’s shuddering clinging limbs with every shift.

\---

It takes four hours for Victor to stop shuddering and mumbling what sounds like complete nonsense to Yuuri.

The only reason Yuuri can tell it’s over is that Victor says _eugh_ and wipes at the drool on his chin. And Yuuri’s chest. Other than that, Victor doesn’t look the slightest bit interested in moving. If anything, he tries to get _even closer_.

“…Victor?” Yuuri says, and pulls his arms away, for what little good it does him. He’s still got one of Victor’s legs wrapped around his waist and Victor’s other knee locked around his thigh – honestly, Yuuri thought _he_ was flexible, but Victor once again proves he’s monarch for a reason. That doesn’t even touch on the hand Victor has up the back of Yuuri’s shirt. So, Yuuri clears his throat, and tries again. “Victor? Are you okay now?”

“Padmé finished talking,” Victor says, which is half an answer, at least, and sighs into Yuuri’s chest. “And another couple of people want to talk now, and I should probably talk to them but I don’t _want to_.” He’s whining against Yuuri now, like he’s Victor’s favorite pillow.

“I think you’re too worn out to talk to more ghosts, so tell them to go away,” Yuuri says, and starts carefully trying to pry Victor’s leg off of his waist.

It’s hard to ignore the unhappy noise Victor makes, but at least Victor pulls his leg away. And with a long, overly dramatic sigh, Victor pulls away from Yuuri entirely, rolling onto his back next to Yuuri. He looks terrible, with clammy skin that’s even paler than usual.

“You know how Amidala was pregnant when she died?” Victor asks, and Yuuri nods. “Well! It turns out she gave birth to twins before she died and also their father is Darth Vader.”

Yuuri has no idea how to reply to that, so he settles for a weak croak of, “Oh.”

“So technically Vader’s her husband and _should_ be allowed to do whatever he wants when it comes to her memory, but she’s also very clearly informed me her husband is now an evil half-robot and would maybe try to murder their children,” Victor continues. “And it gets worse, because Amidala’s children don’t know they’re her children, or Vader’s children, and they don’t even know they’re twins because they were separated at birth-”

“This is really weird,” Yuuri says.

“But what do we _do_ , Yuuri?” Victor asks, and pouts at him. “Her babies are out there growing up and fighting the Empire, never knowing anything about their mother! It’s terrible! We have to do something!”

 _“We_ need to deal with surviving an angry Darth Vader, not go hunting for her majesty’s lost children,” Yuuri says.

“The ghosts can find them,” Victor says.

Yuuri can tell Victor’s getting _stubborn_ about this, which is ridiculous considering the professionalism from before. Who knows, maybe he only turns into an adult when he puts on makeup. So Yuuri says, “Then send a ghost, and we’ll focus on Naboo like we’re supposed to. Or _you’re_ supposed to, I mean.”

“Oh, don’t say that, I like us being a _we_ ,” Victor tells him, and then proceeds to ignore Yuuri’s blush, instead reaching down the mattress and getting a weak grip on the data-pad Yuuri dropped there earlier. Victor’s body is still shaking. “And you have training to do, don’t you?”

“I guess,” Yuuri says, and takes the data-pad with a frown. “But do you really want me to memorize Sariti Lane? She’s 300-year-old essays about agriculture.”

“Memorize it, analyze it, read it aloud while I sleep,” Victor says, and grabs on to the edge of the sheets hanging off the bed, rolling it over himself. “I wasn’t joking about reciting it during pushups, either.”

“I never thought you were,” Yuuri says, and rolls his way off the other edge of the mattress, already looking up the complete treatises.

\---

“No, Yuuri, make it sound fascinating! Make it _sexy!”_ Victor is shouting on top of Yuuri’s back when Yurio storms through the royal bedroom’s door.

Yuuri drops back to the floor with a heavy groan, glasses askew and teeth clattering together when his jaw hits the plush carpet beneath. Victor yelps as he drops right along with his makeshift human bench.

“Yurio!” Victor says, and Yuuri doesn’t have to turn to know there’s a bright beaming smile on Victor’s face. Yuuri has no intention of moving even enough to look at Victor’s face. He stays slumped on the carpet, right where he is.

Now he just needs Victor to get off of him.

“Shut the door, we need to talk,” Victor says to Yurio, who continues to be frozen in horror at the front door.

So maybe they’re both shirtless and sweaty too, and maybe Yurio’s response of _oh, eww_ is a bit justified considering the way Victor continues to lean against Yuuri’s side like Yuuri’s a chaise lounge at an underwear modeling photo shoot. But that seems to be Victor’s automatic reaction to any situation, so Yuuri’s proud to say he is comparatively desensitized to it.

“The door, Yurio!” Victor calls out again.

Finally, Yurio moves, shutting the door behind him. “They warned me that you two had been locked in the bedroom for seven hours,” he says. “Guess I should’ve listened.”

“Yuuri, help me onto the bed,” Victor says, and with another groan, Yuuri manages to get back up and tow Victor off the floor with him. Victor’s steps are shaky on the way back to the mattress, but at least he’s moving. That would’ve seemed like a miracle a couple hours ago. Victor falls back into the pale sheets, and sighs. “I’m worn out from talking to ghosts, but the cover story is Yuuri.”

“Just when I think you can’t get more disgusting,” Yurio says, and Yuuri’s face burns bright red. He sits back down on the carpet and readjusts his glasses. “Did you even _ask_ Yuuri if he wanted everyone to think-”

“It’s fine, Yurio,” Yuuri says, and gives him a small smile. “I’ll be okay.”

“Back to the task at hand,” Victor says. “Yurio, I’m sending you to Ohma-D’un effective immediately-”

 _“What?”_ Yurio shouts.

“-because Darth Vader will be in Theed soon and you’re not very good at hiding your abilities yet,” Victor finishes.

Yurio blinks, and then sags. “Oh,” he says. He’s not mad, just disappointed. He glances back to Yuuri. “Shouldn’t you send him with me?”

“No. He can actually walk and talk while suppressing his sensitivity, unlike you,” Victor says, and there’s the slightest bit of a blush on Yurio’s cheeks. “Still! There’s two things we need to talk about, one of which is your temporary assignment on the moon. The other is, do you know what a padawan is?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s a bit like a bond in the Force, shared between teacher and student, with the student being called a padawan,” Victor says. “It’s also usually a long drawn-out ritual between two people, but I’ve been told _the Force moves in mysterious ways_ so it shouldn’t be too shocking to hear you’re our padawan now.”

“What’s that mean?” Yurio asks.

“What’s _our_ padawan?” Yuuri asks.

Victor lets out a long dramatic sigh, and actually manages to sit up on his own. “Yurio, you and I aren’t strong enough to create a padawan bond. But the Force _really_ wanted there to be a padawan bond, so it tapped into Yuuri too, and with all three of us combined we can pass for one and a half Jedi. This means we can tell if one of us is in danger, can sense some basic emotional states, and that’s about it. Consider it a magical mental alarm system.”

“That can’t be all of it,” Yurio says.

“It probably isn’t, but that’s all I know and I don’t have the energy to go for another round with a ghost,” Victor says, and drops a hand into Yuuri’s hair.

Yuuri’s entire body goes rigid.

The hand pulls away.

“Boss Billota has been notified you’re coming, and I explained the basic situation to be an assassination scare, so keep your head down and I’ll tell you when it’s safe to return. Vader could be on Naboo anywhere from less than an hour to weeks, as far as I know, so be careful!” Victor says, and then drops back down on the bed. “And be sure to act grossed out when you leave.”

“I don’t have to _act_ ,” Yurio says, pauses just long enough to nod towards Yuuri, and then storms back out.

Yuuri shakes his head, and gets up to go fetch the data-pad again. He understands the point of the exercise, and the recitation, and trying to make one thing sound like another (for example: seductive love poetry while reading outdated agricultural theories), so he’s not going to object to it, no matter how uncomfortable it feels.

“You should already have it memorized,” Victor says, so quiet it’s almost a whisper.

“I know, and I’ll work on it, I promise,” Yuuri says, and pulls up the right treatise, scrolling intently as he tries to find where he left off. “Should I start from the top, or continue-”

“Yuuri,” Victor says. He’s turned, now, facing Yuuri with a pleasant placeholder expression on his face, like any actual emotional reaction is waiting behind the curtain of his smile as he looks up at Yuuri. “Is this okay?”

“Is what okay?”

“You didn’t ask for any of this, and I didn’t ask if you were okay with everyone else in the palace thinking we’re sleeping together,” Victor says. “If it’s not okay, I’ll find you a way out.”

Yuuri’s immediate internal response is laughing hysterically at the idea he would _ever_ be ashamed or embarrassed if he really was sleeping with Victor. He’d be awkward, sure, but awkward like walking into a dive diner wearing a suit that costs more than the building.

“It’s fine, Victor,” Yuuri says, but Victor doesn’t look convinced. Or happy. If anything, he looks even less convinced. “No, really! It’s fine! If I can help, I want to. That’s why I’m here.”

“No, it’s _not!_ Don’t let me ruin your reputation because I’m the current monarch,” Victor says, near shouting as he frowns up at Yuuri, and this must _really_ bother him. He starts counting off fingers, saying, “Your reputation, your future political career, your future romantic relationships, the likelihood of you even surviving this job, that’s just the _start_ of what could be affected, and I didn’t even _think-_ ”

“How could it be anything but a _good thing_ if you were willing to sleep with me?” Yuuri asks, incredulous, and waves a hand towards Victor to encompass his… _being_ _Victor._ He’s still strewn across the bed and breathtaking and Naboo’s billion inhabitants agree he’s the most wonderful sentient being in the star system, to the point he’s been put in charge for a _decade._ And Yuuri would be _ashamed?_ “You’re _you!_ That is _not_ going to hurt my reputation.”

“Oh,” Victor says, and after one stunned moment of staring at Yuuri, he bursts into a bright sunny grin. “That’s a great point! I’ll keep that in mind moving forward. Now, seduce me with Lane’s analysis of the Croarti Plains reseeding movement.”

Yuuri knows better than to object, mostly because Victor really _does_ know what he’s doing. Still, Yuuri mutters, “That’s a completely different treatise than before.”

“While doing sit-ups, this time,” Victor adds with a wink, and pulls out another data-pad from the bedside table. They both have homework.


	3. Hear My Heartbeat

In every piece of literature Yuuri has read over his lifetime, a monarch chooses their regalia with solemnity. Each stitch of fabric has a meaning and every piece of finery has a purpose. Reading regalia is an ability only those who have grown up on Naboo or studied extensively can do with any full literacy.

Yuuri has been reading the nuances of Victor’s wardrobe choices for a decade, and always been in awe of the subtlety and precision he’s managed to convey with anything from color or fabric choice to accessory choice. He can _still_ remember the day Victor (well, _King Nikiforov_ ) came on camera wearing the appropriate traditional wintery blues for the solstice wake, but he had a _green bead_ , small and plain, pinned directly over his heart. Yuuri had obsessed over that bead all the way to spring, trying to read what the monarch had intended Naboo to understand.

With the Empire in control, regalia has become more and more important, to the point that ducal seats and even baronies are using basic regalia for speeches. This is because, again, reading regalia is an ability that belongs entirely to the Naboo. It’s how Victor can recite an Empire-enforced propaganda speech with no fear that any citizens who see it will actually believe him, because there’s an asymmetrical bright orange hat on his head that’s just as much of a joke as the words.

Victor’s mastery of regalia is awe-inspiring, and humbling, and the next morning he watches Victor flip through the display and mutter, “Just make it easy to wear.”

He selects light, delicate fabrics, and puts it on random. _Random. It is randomly selected regalia._

Yuuri is _horrified,_ even more so when a cheery green ensemble slides into place next to Victor. He’s so horrified that he’s actually about to open his mouth and _object_ , but Victor pushes a few more buttons and the green-of-spring slides back into the racks. It churns along, and finally pulls out an outfit reminiscent of twilight, a dark blue with what may be an accurate rendition of the stars on his shoulders.

Yuuri’s already dressed in today’s handmaiden robes, an almost quilt-like fabric dyed a rich deep plum color. Victor chose his regalia on near-random, yet deliberated and agonized for an _hour_ over what to put the handmaidens in.

But when he sees the hairstyle selection, Yuuri cannot stand idly by. It’s as if there’s an invisible line drawn across the room, _handmaidens here, monarch there_ , but desperate times mean Yuuri steps into Victor’s area and says, “You can’t wear _that_ to a meeting with an Imperial General!”

“Hmm. This is a good teaching opportunity, I guess,” Victor muses, and gestures at the wig. “To you and every other Naboo native, this is the regalia equivalent of parading around half naked. But consider that Imperial General! He’s lived on Naboo long enough to know the basics of regalia, but not _this_ , so what would he see?”

Yuuri frowns down at the wig. “He’d see your real hair.” Or what it would look like if Victor hadn’t cut it short at some point. It’s all tied in a high braided bun, a few hairpins caught in it – honestly, it’s the regalia equivalent of silky lingerie. Yuuri glances at the scandalously minimalistic wig, and the near-random outfit. “You think he’d actually believe you just rolled out of bed?”

“Over the years, I’ve noticed that people who haven’t studied Naboo think it’s all about hiding me behind face paint and fancy clothes, not sending a message to anyone who can read regalia,” Victor says, which makes sense. “General Kovani knows there’s a message, but he doesn’t know _enough_ – I’ve been insulting him to his face for years and he hasn’t picked up on it yet. He’ll see vulnerability.”

“Meanwhile, everyone else wants to throw a blanket over you,” Yuuri mutters.

“Don’t worry, Yuuri, I’ll change into something decent when I’m done with Kovani,” Victor says, and winks, and then he starts to strip, so Yuuri heads out to find breakfast.

The Royal Quarters are enormous, but it’s still easy enough to follow his nose to the kitchen and dining area, where Chris, Jormé, and Victor-

Wait.

Yuuri comes to a screeching stop, squinting at Victor’s clone. It is _uncanny_ , and goes far beyond the coloring that Jormé also duplicates. Maris is an impossibly identical image of Victor, all the way down to the eye color. His posture, his grin, the set of his jaw, that’s completely different. How the face is used is different. Beyond that, Maris really _is_ a face clone. Literally. They probably cloned Victor’s face.

“Done yet? Or do you want to poke me, too?” Maris asks, unimpressed. His voice is _very_ different.

Yuuri flushes, and grabs himself a plate of breakfast from the kitchen.

Breakfast is awkward. It’s so awkward. He does his best to keep up with the small talk, but there’s always the unasked question of what he and Victor were up to last night. It hovers over the table, like a balloon ready to pop.

Eventually, the entire company of handmaidens is there, including Vardé, who won’t stop glaring at him. All of them are watching Yuuri, _waiting_ , and if it keeps up he’s going to be sick. Yuuri finishes his plate and _where is Victor?_

“He spends mornings doing paperwork with Makkachin,” Christophe says, and Yuuri goes bright red because he hadn’t realized he’d said that aloud. But Christophe stands up, and gestures for Yuuri to follow him. “I’ll give you a quick tour, too.”

The tour is very quick.

The Royal Quarters start with one great central atrium, which is where one may find doors to the wardrobe, the royal bedroom, the handmaidens’ room, and a few other doors Christophe doesn’t explain. It’s more or less the hub of a wheel. The atrium has a small garden in it, and the ceiling is glass panes that can be opened to the air or shut entirely beneath another green dome. Christophe leads him through one of the unknown doorways – and these are _huge_ doorways, massive arches that either stand open to the atrium like the wardrobe or stand closed with elaborate woodwork scrolling across the double doors.

“You don’t have to tell me what’s going on, but remember we’re all here to help his majesty, hmm?” Christophe says, and pulls open one of the doors.

Marble stairs lead down to what must be an _actual_ garden, perfectly manicured grass stretching out between the curving walls that ensure the Royal Quarters’ private courtyard is actually private. There’s the happy bark of a familiar dog, and Yuuri watches as Makkachin comes running towards them, following a bright yellow ball sailing through the air.

“Because I say so,” Victor tells someone, and there’s grumbling from a second party accompanying it.

Any chance at eavesdropping is gone the second Makkachin spots them. The dog fetches like a pro, pants happily over the ball for a moment, and then lets out a happy bark at the sight of Yuuri and Christophe.

“Oh, hello, you pretty thing you!” Christophe coos immediately, and Makkachin runs to him, immediately rolling over for belly rubs that Christophe happily provides.

“Christophe? Is that you?” Victor calls out, which is as good of a cue as Yuuri’s going to get, so he follows Christophe deeper into the garden. Makkachin runs ahead of them, likely eager for the next round of fetch.

 Victor is lounging in a wicker garden chair, still makeup-free but wearing his already-chosen scandalous regalia. A barely touched breakfast rests on a table to his left, along with an intimidating pile of holocrons and data-pads. To his right is another wicker garden chair, which is occupied by Councilmember Yakov Feltsman.

“So,” Yakov says, eyes dissecting Yuuri in record time. “This is him, huh? Yuuri Katsuki, the disgraced duke and new prime handmaiden.”

“Be nice, Yakov. Now! What can I do for you, Chris? Yuuri?” Victor asks, and frowns. “Did Kovani do something?”

“You need to stop playing games with that man, Vitya,” Yakov scolds. Yuuri narrowly avoids his mouth dropping open in shock at the nickname. It’s the equivalent of walking up to Queen Padmé Amidala and calling her _Pads_ or something. But if Victor doesn’t seem to care, Yuuri won’t care either. “You’re getting careless, losing focus. At this rate, soon you’ll be tipping across the line towards an Imperial execution.”

“Then I might as well jump the line with style,” Victor says, and smiles brightly towards Yakov. “Find me my contact, and then you can start criticizing my life choices again, okay?”

“Yes, your majesty. At least _try_ not to get killed,” Yakov says, and stands with a scowl towards Yuuri. Yakov might not agree with anything Victor’s doing, but he’s certainly obeying, walking out without releasing any of the unspoken venom he’s obviously built towards Yuuri.

“Thaaaank you, Yakov!” Victor calls out, and then looks between Christophe and Yuuri, expectant. “What do you need? Has something happened with General Kovani or is he still waiting?”

“What do you mean, waiting?” Yuuri asks. He already knows what it means, but there’s the smallest of chances that he’s wrong, and Yuuri has to find some kind of hope in these agonizing times.

Victor drops a hand down, and Makkachin immediately presses against his palm. “For the record, he _started_ waiting all on his own,” Victor begins. “He chose to show up at dawn all on his own, and as far as he knows I’m not even awake yet, so really, Yuuri, don’t worry! It’ll be fine!”

Yuuri can’t even begin to imagine how Victor has survived this long when he makes decisions like this.

It’s probably the ghosts.

He takes a deep, calming breath, in and out, and then says, “I’d _suggest_ you don’t keep the most politically dangerous person on the planet waiting for much longer.”

Victor shakes his head, and focuses on petting Makkachin for a moment before saying, “Christophe, please leave and close the door on your way out.”

Christophe obeys with a barely-there bow.

The doors shut with a smooth heavy thud. Birds are singing in a couple of the garden’s trees, a small fountain bubbling delicately deeper into the garden, and the air is perfectly still from the high stone walls that cage the garden and yet another currently-open glass dome above them.

“I wonder what it’s going to take for you to actually trust me to do my job,” Victor says, and stands, frowning at Yuuri like he’s a particularly tricky puzzle. And then, he pouts. “You trusted me to do my job before you’d ever even spoken to me, but now that you _do_ know me, it’s like I can’t do anything right! Am I really that bad? Do I really seem that irresponsible?”

“No, of course not,” Yuuri objects.

“Then have faith in me, Yuuri,” Victor says before Yuuri can even try to explain. “I know I’m not the most serious person in the world, I know I’m – I have flaws! And I know that. But that doesn’t change the fact that _I’m good at this_.”

“I know you are,” Yuuri says.

“I’m good at this, and I’ve been doing it for years,” Victor continues, and waves a hand to his right. “Not only that, I have _centuries_ of guidance I can rely upon in case I _don’t_ know what to do. So when I make a choice like this, when I let the very dangerous General Kovani sit around and wait until he reaches his boiling point, it’s not a petty choice I’m making because I don’t like him. I have a reason. Can you at least try to trust that, please?”

He doesn’t want to. Yes, Victor has plans, Victor knows what he’s doing, Victor is an excellent monarch, but he’s not…he’s not a _safe_ monarch, and that’s what scares Yuuri. It’s not a matter of trust, it’s a matter of seeing Victor take risks that Yuuri is desperate to have him avoid.

Yuuri wants him safe, and happy, and smiling and laughing and free from the stress that is already lining his face, small frown lines he could reach out and trace with his fingers. The lines were there in Hasetsu, too, but rarely visible. In Theed, without the royal makeup, they’re hard to miss.

“Of course I trust you, Victor,” Yuuri finally says. “But I worry about how those choices could go wrong, and the risks you take.”

“Is anyone safe these days?” Victor asks. “Stormtroopers can pull any random person off the street if they want. The only difference is if I’m murdered, people will notice, and when I take risks, it can actually pay off. I’m risking my life, yes, but it’s usually for the sake of billions of sentient beings, and that’s not a hard choice to make.”

Victor is focusing on the big picture side of things, which makes sense. Of course he is. He’s the monarch. He’s used to acting on behalf of an entire star system.

But when Yuuri looks at Victor, he doesn’t see King Nikiforov anymore. He _can’t_ see King Nikiforov, Monarch of Naboo.

All he sees is Victor.

“Think of this as a lesson on priorities, and how to think about the bigger picture,” Victor says, almost gently, and gives Yuuri one soft warm smile before he goes back to work.

\---

Victor leaves Kovani to squirm for as long as he can, which is about 90 minutes after the general starts his dawn vigil. The only reason Victor decides to see him at that point is Kovani reaches the cusp of anger and explicitly orders one of the servants to find out what King Nikiforov is doing and if there’s any excuse for making him wait like this. Victor didn’t technically summon him, but Kovani doesn’t care, and his deference from the previous day crumbles away second by second.

Just as planned, Victor looks displeased and barely-dressed, even going so far as a slipshod application of makeup that makes Vardé so upset that she stays back in the Royal Quarters fighting off tears instead of joining them in the throne room.

When General Kovani strides into the room, he takes one look at Victor and screeches to a halt. He covers it with a stuttering bow and a muttered greeting, but despite all the odds, despite how ridiculous it is, Victor’s plan _works._ Kovani is visibly unsettled, to the point that he says, “I’m…forgive me if I’m intruding-”

“You are, and never try to intimidate my servants into doing your bidding again,” Victor says, and then points for the General to take a seat, which he does. “I have considered your request for Darth Vader to have access to Queen Amidala’s...for the sake of your understanding of the gravity of this situation, I’ll call them sacred spaces. Parts of this request, I cannot grant, simply based on the fact I do not have the authority. For example, the Naberrie family’s private shrine. You’d have to petition Senator Pooja Naberrie personally.”

“And the other parts of the request?” Kovani asks.

Yuuri knows this answer, because he listened to Victor recite it over and over again for Padmé last night, until she was satisfied. The decision of whether or not to let her ex-husband in to her tombs and shrines was left in her hands, considering they belong to her in the first place.

“Lord Vader may have access to any location he wishes, so long as he is supervised to ensure the sanctity of those spaces remains intact,” Victor says. Kovani leans forward, already objecting, but Victor holds up a hand to stop him. “There’s no record of Lord Vader having any knowledge of Naboo’s traditions and culture beyond being Palpatine’s apprentice. This is the equivalent of pulling an urchin boy off the street and putting him at a dinner table with the Emperor.”

General Kovani frowns. “He won’t be happy with this answer.”

“I’m certain he’ll understand, and if he does not, Emperor Palpatine could likely explain the importance of our culture and traditions to him,” Victor says.

There is exactly one bit of leverage that Naboo has in the galaxy, and it’s the Emperor’s origin story. He may be thoroughly Coruscanti by now, but that doesn’t keep Palpatine from still exhibiting the subtleties of regalia in every single image. Yuuri doesn’t know the man, but he does know that Palpatine’s wardrobe always says the same thing: _power._ While the rest of the galaxy sees his outfits as hooded black robes, Naboo reads the fabric, the texture, the varying shades of black, the differences in trim (if present), and the drastically telling hood lengths. Palpatine left Naboo, but the culture is still inside him, still part of him.

It’s why General Kovani is here with a formal request, instead of Darth Vader suddenly appearing with a wrecking crew of stormtroopers.

“I’ll inform Lord Vader immediately,” Kovani says, stands, bows, and leaves.

The second he’s gone, Victor sags across his royal desk with a heavy groan. “Shut the doors, please.”

Maris and Jormé obey, and when they’re shut, Maris stations himself directly in front of them, arms crossed, frowning across the room towards where Victor is slumped.

“Who exactly is supposed to be escorting _Darth Vader_ around?” Maris asks.

“I don’t know,” Victor says.

“More importantly, when do we need to know who is escorting Darth Vader around?” Georgi asks. “We have no information. There’s no expected arrival date, no anticipated destinations beyond the hundreds of Amidala shrines on Naboo, no reason provided for the request in the first place…”

For a good five minutes, the handmaidens proceed to pace around the room and point out all the ways this is a horrible situation and they’re probably all going to die.

Yuuri stays silent in his designated chair and wishes he didn’t agree with them.

Victor remains slumped over his desk, but his eyes are fixed across the room, watching something with minimal expression, a twitch of his lip here, a furrowed brow, unexplained reactions there for a moment and then gone the next.

He wants to ask what Victor sees, but there’s three other handmaidens in the room (excluding still-distraught Vardé and already-busy Christophe, who was given a task while Victor waited for Kovani to be sufficiently irked), and asking _what dead person are you looking at_ probably wouldn’t be the best idea.

So instead, Yuuri approaches and asks, “How do you think this will turn out?”

“I have no idea,” Victor says, and rubs a hand over his eyes, smudging his already slipshod makeup even more. “Have you ever been to Ohma-D’un, Yuuri?”

“You’re not sending me to a moon,” Yuuri says.

“It’s amazing. We’re here in the throne room, I’m in regalia, _sitting_ _in the throne_ , and you _still_ forget I can tell you and every other person on Naboo what to do,” Victor says, more amused than anything else, his smile even bordering on affectionate. Yuuri feels himself starting to blush, but ignores it, focusing instead on the way Victor turns to look at the other three handmaidens. “What’s next on the day’s-”

Georgi lets out a yelping shout of horror, loud enough that it echoes through the atrium, plunging the room into anxious silence. Georgi gapes at his data-pad and then looks up at Victor with wide, scared eyes as he says, “Emperor Palpatine is calling, and he’s automatically high-priority line so he’ll be patched in within the minute.”

Victor’s hands fly up to grab at his unbearably scandalous wig as he whispers something that sounds like cursing but is too squeaky for Yuuri to make any syllables out. The other handmaidens are staring at Victor, whose makeup is ruined, and Yuuri can see the central hologram projector in the floor is starting to pull up out of the beautiful tile, and there’s no time, there’s _no time._

They need an excuse. They need to explain away Victor’s appearance to someone who is born and raised on Naboo and would never be fooled by _I just woke up_. Yuuri was surprised even General Kovani was fooled. It would be downright offensive to try and pass a lie like that off to the Emperor.

Victor turns and stares at Yuuri with wide blue eyes, pale beneath the smudged makeup.

They need an excuse. Victor needs an excuse. They don’t have time for a _good_ excuse, just something that would make sense, _Yuuri needs to find an excuse_ -

Yuuri reaches forward and grabs the wig off Victor’s head, already shoving it into one of the desk drawers as he commands, “Everyone out, shut the doors, someone get a decent headdress from Vardé and slide it across the floor to near the desk as soon as possible _without being seen_.”

The handmaidens don’t hesitate to obey. Jormé is already rushing down the hall before Georgi and Maris even have the other doors shut.

It leaves Yuuri staring down at Victor, who is staring up at Yuuri, unreadable for the first time Yuuri can recall.

“My idea is the same thing as yesterday, so…so I guess we should, uh,” Yuuri says, and there’s no _time_ to be stuttering and burning scarlet as he watches Victor realize what he’s saying.

For one agonizing heartbeat, Victor looks like he’s going to burst into tears.

And then he looks away, and stands. He hops up to sit on his desk, grabbing Yuuri by the back of his neck and pulling him close to press a very firm, wet, makeup-transferring kiss to his cheek.

Yuuri expected there to be something…romantic about it, maybe, something hot and sexual, but instead Yuuri is frantically running his hands through Victor’s hair and over his cheeks and trying to mess up his clothes while Victor practically covers Yuuri’s face in lipstick and smears of white paint. It’s an excuse, it’s a _lie_ , one they have to pass off to the Emperor himself, and it feels like the mission it is – mess Victor up as much as possible, try to sell the lie that they’ve been frantically making out and that’s why Victor looks so very _human_ instead of royal.

It’s professional and brusque all the way up to hearing the hologram projector start to hum, and Yuuri knew what he’d be getting into with this, it was _Yuuri’s idea_ , but it’s still a shock to feel Victor’s lips against his.

This is not a gentle first kiss. This isn’t anything but _sloppy_ , and Yuuri tries to keep up, he really does, but the moment Victor’s tongue gets in his mouth Yuuri lets out a pathetic helpless whimper of a noise, eyes squeezing shut, body going rigid beneath Victor’s hands, and it…changes.

One of Victor’s hands goes from trying to mess Yuuri’s robes up to a gentle caress against his cheek, and Victor pulls away – which is _not_ the point, so Yuuri chases his mouth with an objecting whine.

When Yuuri catches him, it’s chaste, nothing like the show they’re supposed to be putting on. It’s gentle, and sweet, and Victor wraps his arms around Yuuri, pulling him close like it’s a hug. Like it’s real, maybe. Victor pulls him close, warm and welcoming, and it feels so different. It makes Yuuri shudder, clinging to Victor’s clothes, and Victor presses a kiss to Yuuri’s temple and whispers, “It’s okay, Yuuri, I’m so sorry, it’s okay-”

_“Your majesty,”_ the most terrifying voice in the universe calls out from the center of the room, and Yuuri jumps back – or tries to, at least. Victor has an iron grip on him, gaze fixed on Yuuri when Yuuri actually opens his eyes.

“Emperor Palpatine, what a pleasant surprise,” Victor says, but he is wholly focused on Yuuri’s face. There’s a question in his eyes, one Yuuri can’t even begin to understand, but when Yuuri _very pointedly_ flicks his eyes to the large blue projection behind Victor, Victor finally nods, even if he doesn’t look very happy about it, and releases Yuuri.

Yuuri doesn’t quite _run_ back to his chair, but it’s a very brisk and awkward walk while Victor (who looks _thoroughly_ wrecked now) clears his throat and turns to look at Emperor Palpatine’s hologram.

As ever, the Emperor’s robes read of _power_ , but…well, nobody from Naboo, even the Emperor of the galaxy, could resist a _little_ regalia when talking to the monarch, so there’s more to it – simple silver trim, a delicate geometric clasp, a hood that drapes only to his eyebrows. Overall: power, tradition, and an openness to discussion. It’s hard to get a more promising outfit than that.

_“Allow me to congratulate you on finding a partner, your majesty,”_ Palpatine says cheerily, which is a surprise. He almost seems _pleased._

“Thank you!” Victor says, and sounds like _Victor_ now, which is bizarre.

_“I wish you a lifetime of happiness. Tell me, when did this develop?”_

“Just recently. I took my first vacation in six years to go chase him.” He even glances back at Yuuri with a smile of near-unbearable affection. “We only returned to Theed yesterday, which you likely know. I’m afraid we’re still at the honeymoon phase. I appreciate your understanding.”

_“Oh, I don’t understand at all, but I’m glad you’ve found someone,”_ Palpatine says. _“Please do invite me to your wedding. When you come to Coruscant, bring your young man. I’d like to meet you both in person.”_

“We’d be honored to visit, thank you,” Victor says, and sits back down in his throne a little too sharply, more falling than sitting. “I’m still catching up on things since my vacation-”

_“The twentieth anniversary of the Galactic Empire’s formation is coming soon, and I will expect_ both _of you to be here, as my personal guests,”_ Palpatine says, even waving a graciously welcoming hand – his right hand, a smooth figure eight of the wrist and forearm, palm open, twisting out and then back to its original placement.

It’s perfect.

Yuuri has never seen Palpatine in an actual discussion like this. It’s only ever been official news broadcasts and holovids. In real time, it is _terrifying_ , because every gesture, every word, every minor twitch of his lips, is _perfect._ He makes Victor look like a toddler pretending to be a trial lawyer. There’s no truly deeper meaning to the conversation just yet, but in under a minute, he’s already _forced_ them to come to Coruscant, and done so in such a polite, amiable, naturally-flowing manner that it is literally impossible for Victor to say no without blatantly insulting the Emperor.

“Then we will be there, your majesty, and I look forward to finally meeting you in person. We’ve put that off for far too long,” Victor says, still as bright and welcoming as before. So maybe it’s more like a first year law student pretending to be a trial lawyer. “But, to our other topic. I assume you’re here in regards to Lord Vader’s request?”

_“I am,”_ Palpatine agrees, with just enough of a small regretful sigh for him to still be at that casual friendship level of speech. _“My apprentice does not understand the ways of our people. He does not understand the sanctity of Amidala herself. I understand and agree with the very wise and well thought out decision you made in regards to Lord Vader’s access to Amidala’s shrines – it was deft, fair, and well chosen.”_ He pauses, just the smallest of smiles twitching onto his lips. _“You continue to impress.”_

“You flatter me,” Victor says, and it’s too flat. It’s still friendly but tosses away the compliment. It teeters terrifyingly close to confrontational.

_“I applaud your work in difficult times,”_ the emperor objects – or corrects, maybe? It’s too subtle for Yuuri to be certain, but it’s positive enough that Yuuri knows he isn’t about to Force choke Victor to death, thank the stars. Palpatine’s lips twitch into something vaguely similar to a smile. _“I’ve lived through many monarchs, your majesty, be it as senator, chancellor, or emperor, and you’re my favorite. By far. Long may you reign and serve our people well.”_

“To you as well,” Victor says. “Now, forgive me, but it sounds as if you agree with my decision. Is that true?”

Unnoticed by the conversationalists, one of the doors peeks open and a perfectly matching headdress slides across the floor to rest near the desk.

_“It is,”_ Palpatine says, not-smile gone. _“However, I have a request to make. As I said, Lord Vader doesn’t have a full understanding of the situation on Naboo. But at the same time, most of our people wouldn’t understand my apprentice, either. This is why I ask_ you _to be his escort, your majesty. Personally.”_

Yuuri is very glad he was smart enough to pull his hood back down, because he can feel tears gathering in his eyes. They start the second Palpatine says it, because it’s an _order_. It’s an Imperial command given directly by the Emperor himself. When Vader shows up, Victor has to attend Darth Vader, in all his murderous half-robot glory.

“I’d be happy to show your apprentice the sights! It’s the least I can do,” Victor says.

_“Excellent,”_ the emperor says. _“I’ll inform him immediately.”_

Victor nods. “Do you know when he’ll be arriving, so I can rearrange my schedule?”

_“Soon, I imagine,”_ Palpatine says. _“In two or three days, most likely. Your time is appreciated, your majesty, and rest assured I will not forget your indulgence in this matter.”_

“Helping you is never an indulgence, or a favor. It is simply friendship,” Victor says, and smiles. “I truly do look forward to meeting you in person at the twenty year celebration. I’ll be sure to bring some Vis cognac.”

_“Oh, that would be quite the welcome present,”_ Palpatine says, and pauses (so _artfully_ , it’s like watching a master craftsman). _“And Victor?”_

“Yes?”

_“Don’t give another upsetting speech like your post-Alderaan address,”_ Palpatine says, with the frown of a concerned teacher. _“My goal and that of the entire Galactic Empire is safety, and stability. Everything I do is aimed towards those goals, even asking you to lie to our people.”_

“I understand, but I had friends on Alderaan,” Victor says. “It was…” He pauses. “I worry about the happiness of our people, and keeping the peace.”

_“Of course,”_ the emperor says. _“But what have I told you of peace, over the years?”_

“Peace is a lie,” Victor says.

_“There is only passion,”_ the emperor says, and nods. _“Through passion, you gain strength. Through strength, you gain power.”_

“Power leads to victory, through which all chains are broken,” Victor says, obviously quoting something. Whatever it is, Yuuri’s never come across it.

_“Consider the words, and your mindset,”_ Palpatine tells him, and bows just the slightest bit, more of a respectful head nod. _“Thank you for your time, your majesty, and I wish you the best with your new partner.”_

And he’s gone.

It’s like every bit of tension explodes out of Yuuri’s body, including the good parts that keep him upright – Yuuri crumples out of his chair and all the way to the floor, pressing his cheek against the tile.

_We’re going to die,_ Yuuri thinks, and squeezes his eyes shut. If Vader doesn’t kill them in two or three days, Palpatine certainly will when Empire Day comes around and he and Victor are trapped as his personal guests.

He hears Victor grab something out of his desk (probably the scandalous wig) and cross the barely-there distance between his throne and where Yuuri is curled and fighting the urge to scream. There’s the elegant whisper of fine fabric in front of Yuuri – the sound of Victor joining him on the floor.

“Roll onto your back for me, Yuuri,” Victor says, gentle, and Yuuri obeys for him, eyes opening to see Victor seated next to him, looking down at Yuuri with a small worried smile and a bare, makeup-free face. While Yuuri settles into position frowning up at Victor (the Monarch of Naboo, King Nikiforov, decade-reigning living legend), Victor winks at him, and pulls out a wet cloth. He starts running it over Yuuri’s cheek. “You wouldn’t be interested in faking your own death, would you?”

“And leave you to _actually_ die?” Yuuri asks. “No.”

“What if I ordered you to go find Amidala’s babies?” Victor asks, and keeps wiping the remains of Victor’s facepaint and lipstick off of Yuuri’s skin.

“I’m not leaving. I’m not letting you try to deal with this alone,” Yuuri tells him – bold words for someone lying limp on the floor, but Yuuri means them. He sighs. “And thanks to my _great_ cover idea, the emperor now thinks we’re about to get married, so if I’m not around he might start asking questions.”

Victor scrubs a little harder than necessary for a few moments, cheeks turning the slightest bit pink.

Yuuri swallows, and begins, “Sorry about the-”

“No, no, don’t apologize, it was a good idea, and it did work. You couldn’t have known it would turn out like this. I mean, really, how could anyone expect Palpatine to be _happy_ about it? Or encourage it? It’s _weird_ is what it is!” Victor says. “Really weird.”

“What are we going to do?” Yuuri asks, quiet. He’s scared to hear the answer. He’s even more scared that Victor might not have an answer.

For a long moment, Victor keeps cleaning off Yuuri’s face, frowning in concentration. Finally, Victor finishes with one sharp swipe across Yuuri’s lips. He tosses the disposable cloth into the trash bin under his desk and says, “I want you to head into the royal practice arena, and train. Use the holo-trainer with my personal settings on it, pick the custom program that has an angry face, and use a blindfold while running through it. Put some pads on, too, because it’s going to hurt. Think of it like the advanced version of our lake house’s afternoon practice sessions.”

Yuuri would like to object. He wants to grab on to Victor’s still-messy regalia and shake him and try to make the fool monarch see how he _can’t_ do this alone. Nobody could. But there’s a shuttered distance in Victor’s expression, avoiding the piercing eye contact Yuuri’s so used to.

And Yuuri _did_ practically force Victor to make out with him and then got them ordered to visit Coruscant and the Emperor himself because of it. Bringing about their inevitable executions probably didn’t make him Victor’s favorite person, no matter how insistent he is to excuse Yuuri’s idiocy.

So, he stands, trying to tidy his own handmaiden robes up a bit. Victor stays kneeling on the floor, watching, silent.

“Please try to stay safe, your majesty,” Yuuri says, and leaves to do his bidding.

\---

Yuuri manages to hold it together for a good few hours, even past the point when someone decided to bring a tray of food down into the dimly-lit arena.

Arena is a polite word for the (once again) circular room that’s carved into the base rock of Theed, leaving the windows to stare out across the plains, and to do so with minimal lighting until past noon since the windows face west. It has all the same equipment as The Castle back in Hasetsu, the same basic set-up. The biggest difference is the difficulty settings.

At The Castle, Victor had cheerily danced his way through the highest setting available.

Yuuri can understand why, now. He’s not an idiot, so he does some quick warm-up rounds, and it’s true, now that Yuuri knows how to _feel_ for things, it’s all easier. He dodges faster, his movement is smoother, and he’s better in general. Still nowhere near what Victor can do, but he’s certainly vastly improved compared to before Victor showed up to train him.

Yuuri works his way through a brief monarch-level simulation just fine.

But Victor’s angry face setting? The one labeled as (ง'̀-'́)ง and sits at the very bottom of the custom modes list?

Victor’s (ง'̀-'́)ง setting is _impossible._

The first time Yuuri turns it on, the projection tosses him out of the ring in less than a second. Part of it is from shock, because Victor’s (ง'̀-'́)ง setting is _a_ projection. Unlike every other simulation Yuuri’s run through in his entire life, the holo-trainer creates one single enemy, and the contact settings are ramped up to the point that it reaches out, grabs Yuuri’s throat, and throws him out of the ring like an irritating chew toy.

It doesn’t turn off when Yuuri is thrown out of the trainer, either. Oh no. Instead, the projection… _prowls_. It paces back and forth over the ring, oddly pointy-topped head pointing towards Yuuri with every step.

It looks like the enemy is wearing an indistinct crown of spikes, and the effect is terrifying. And probably says a _lot_ about any anger issues King Victor might be dealing with, since he designed it in the first place.

But worst of all is when the projected enemy stops prowling, and instead beckons Yuuri back into the ring.

Artificial intelligence is usually not all that advanced in a holo-trainer.

It gets even more confusing when the entire holo-trainer flickers and goes from the red warning shades of an active combat simulation into the dark green shades of _demonstration mode_.

The projection beckons again.

Warily, Yuuri stands and approaches. He doesn’t enter the ring, because he’s not an idiot. Then again, he is enough of an idiot to look around the room to make sure it’s empty before he asks the projection, “Are you one of Victor’s ghosts?”

There’s no answer, although the projection does hold a hand out towards where Yuuri is teetering on the edge of the ring, inviting.

Yuuri steps in.

The second Yuuri is fully inside the holo-trainer, its projection flickers right back into red mode, and Yuuri is roundhouse kicked out of the ring before he has time to do anything beyond gasp in utter betrayal.

Victor’s (ง'̀-'́)ง setting is impossible, and also a _jerk._

So, yes, Yuuri probably gets a bit too passionate about trying to beat up a pointy-skulled hologram and ends up sweaty and bruised and completely misses whoever showed up to give him lunch. Part of this is because the hologram also _mocks him_. It has a pre-programmed animation of tossing its head back and laughing, among other things. Yuuri is not a violent man but he honestly cannot remember ever wanting to punch someone in the face so very badly before, and it’s not even a real person.

Which is probably the point. The (ง'̀-'́)ง projection is too strong, too fast, too smart, too _jumpy_ , and it’s also the opponent Yuuri wants to defeat the most – Victor created an obviously unbeatable and physically painful simulation that Yuuri is willingly attempting over and over again.

But the frustration keeps building and building and _building_ , and even focusing on trying to beat (or at least _compete with_ ) the projection doesn’t get rid of the lingering doom ahead of them. If Darth Vader doesn’t kill Victor, Palpatine certainly will, and Yuuri can’t stop thinking about that moment when Victor realized what Yuuri’s plan was, when he looked ready to _cry_ , is Yuuri really that bad? Who is he kidding, of course he is. Victor didn’t even have time to say no, and maybe if he _had_ said no then Palpatine would’ve left them alone.

But Yuuri did it, and here they are, days or maybe even hours away from their first potential murderer.

The (ง'̀-'́)ง projection knocks Yuuri out of the ring one more time, and when Yuuri hits the floor, he stays there.

Nobody magically appears to comfort him, timed perfectly with a cup of tea and a warm hug and anxiety-soothing words.

Nobody is there to see him cry, either, but he puts his hands over his eyes anyway.

Yuuri doesn’t know how long he stays there on the floor, but when he wipes at his eyes and dares to sit up, the holo-trainer has deactivated and there’s a handmaiden-robed figure sitting next to the door. He can’t tell which handmaiden it is.

“How long have you been here?” Yuuri asks them.

A long hesitant moment passes between them, and then the handmaiden hood is thrown back to reveal either Victor or Maris. But it’s definitely Victor’s voice that says, “A lithe while. I came running when I was told you were thrown out of the holo-trainer and weren’t moving.”

Oh.

Yes, Yuuri can see how that would be a very concerning conclusion someone could reach.

“Should I leave?” Victor asks, and stands, watching Yuuri carefully.

He doesn’t want Victor to leave. He doesn’t want to force Victor to stay, either. So Yuuri stands up on shaking legs (and he hadn’t realized until now how sore and exhausted his body is) and moves to sit on the end of one of the benches along the walls, leaving plenty of space on the rest of the bench.

Victor walks over with a guarded pace, sitting closer to the other edge of the bench than Yuuri intended, but he’s there. Victor chose to sit instead of leave, and it’s enough.

The world moves in a soft sort of slow motion, warm golden light filtering through the great windows.

“I’m sorry,” Victor says.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Yuuri says, and Victor begins to object, but Yuuri can’t do this right now. He can’t have this conversation, he’s not ready for it, so he says, “Explain your angry face setting.”

“But I…” Victor begins, and then there’s a brief muttering that Yuuri can’t make out, but Victor lets Yuuri avoid it. “Do you remember me saying there are two ghosts who are more powerful than the others? The actual Force ghosts, not the remnant souls?” Yuuri nods. “Well, one of them is a Sith named Darth Maul, and to make a very long story short, he helped me build a replica of himself for training purposes, and that’s the angry face setting.”

In other words, Yuuri has been fighting the ghost of an evil Jedi.

“Palpatine and Vader would still destroy us in a fight, of course, but at least we can train to survive for a few seconds,” Victor says, so cheerful about managing a delayed murder that it’s disturbing. “That’s a lot more than most people can do! And you should’ve listened to me, I told you to wear the training pads for a reason, Yuuri. You’re going to be nothing but black and blue in the morning.”

“Don’t you have a planet to run?” Yuuri asks.

Victor pouts. “And here I thought you’d be _happy_ I was actually using my decoy for once.”

“There’s a difference between using a decoy and having someone sit through all your meetings for you,” Yuuri says. “You’re supposed to have something more important to do.”

He expects an objection, maybe teasing, possibly even something playful with a wink at the end of it. Instead, Victor turns, sitting cross-legged on the bench and staring at the side of Yuuri’s head. “When I ran in here, I expected you to be hurt, probably even knocked unconscious.”

Yuuri’s cheeks redden, shame and embarrassment clawing their way up his throat as he stares down at the floor. “Sorry.”

“No, don’t – I didn’t mean it like that,” Victor says. “Ever since I brought you to Theed, you’ve been in terrible situation after terrible situation, and _this_ was just…one step too far, I guess. It’s only been two days and you’ve already had to do things handmaidens I’ve had for ten years would never even consider doing.”

“You didn’t force me to do anything, Victor,” Yuuri tells him.

“I forced you to come to Theed and be my prime handmaiden, and it all comes back to that,” Victor says, which is true.

But it’s also ignoring all of the bizarre circumstances that led them here, and the fact Victor brought Yuuri here for what was supposed to be his own safety. Nobody could’ve predicted this, and if someone _had_ , there’s no way Yuuri would believe it.

There’s no way out.

They have two or three days until Darth Vader shows up, and there’s no way out.

So, he says, “I’m just glad I’m here to help.”

“There are ways I can get you away from all of this,” Victor says. “I can figure it out. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to do _any_ of this.”

Yuuri looks at him, then. He sees the concern, the questions, the tension in Victor. Yuuri smiles for him, and stands. Victor’s hand drops from Yuuri’s shoulder. “You’re King Nikiforov, of course you can figure out how to hide me away. But I’m still staying, even knowing I can get out of this. I’m choosing to stay here and face this.”

Victor does not look happy with this answer. He lets out a long sigh, slouching back against the wall with a look of exhaustion so deep it hurts. “Why are you so _brave,_ ” Victor whines, the back of head thudding against the wall to leave Victor staring up at the ceiling. It is definitely not a compliment.

Brave isn’t the word for this. Yuuri has never been brave. But he’s stubborn, and loyal, and every part of him – mind, heart, body, and soul – screams in horror at the idea of abandoning Victor in his time of need, leaving him to face this alone. No, that’s not going to happen. Even if Victor tries to forcibly remove him from the palace, from Theed, from the whole planet, it’s not going to happen.

There are other things to focus on, though, other obligations and requirements in their lives, things that Yuuri _can_ take care of.

For example: Yuuri needs a shower. He’s sweaty and smelly and probably looks like an absolute mess, and when he tells Victor, the small laugh he gets is a pleasant affirmation that yes, a shower would probably be a good idea.

With one last glare towards the holo-trainer and one tight smile towards Victor, Yuuri heads into the conveniently attached locker room. It’s too nice to really call a _locker room_ , with its intricate mosaic floor and the beautifully-sculpted metalwork that passes for lockers, but that’s the best word Yuuri can think of for it. _Royal_ locker room, maybe. Regardless, the beauty doesn’t keep it from being functional.

Everything’s okay at the beginning. Clothing awaits him in a locker already labeled _Yuuri_ , soap and shampoo and towels laid out for his use. It’s comfortable and easy.

It should be fine. There’s nothing wrong. He’s completely alone when he undresses. The shower is a perfect temperature after a few minor adjustments. The shampoo smells wonderful. The water feels wonderful.

And they’re going to die.

His entire body goes rigid as the panic (the _truth_ ) hits Yuuri, and he can’t see. What little clarity of vision he has vanishes into a disorienting blur of thoughts so fast he can’t even track his own hand, can barely see the wall in front of him.

They’re going to die in one, two, maybe three days if they’re lucky. If you can call that lucky. Even if they survive that, it’s on to Empire Day on Coruscant, which is an even more inevitable death. There’s no way out of it. Yuuri and Victor are going to die.

Yuuri can’t breathe, can’t _think_ beyond the terror gnawing through his skull, barely registering the pain when his knees hit the floor. Water stings his eyes, steam chokes his lungs, and Yuuri tries to move, tries to shut off the water, but only manages to paw at the air and gag on nothing, desperate lungs swallowing down air but never _using it_ , there and gone, gone, _gone_. Yuuri shudders, body freezing in a downpour of hot water.

He shuts his eyes, and tries to calm down but just ends up letting out a horrible pathetic _sob_. Yuuri knows what this is but he never knows how to fight it, only knows how to _survive it_ , so Yuuri lets himself fall.

There’s no way for him to know how long it lasts. All he knows is he feels like he’s already dying, already _dead_ and only now realizing he’s been a walking corpse for most of his life, sobbing in the shower ( _pathetic, useless, disgusting_ ) and then gasping his way out of it. The water is off, and at least three fluffy white towels are thrown over him.

Yuuri gets himself back down to brief halting skips in his breath rather than sobbing, wrapping one of the oversized towels around himself. He’s exhausted, and drained, but…better. Sort of. At least the subtle anxiety of awaiting his inevitable crippling panic episode is gone.

When he finally manages to stand up and get out of the shower, wrapped in towels that didn’t magically appear all on their own, it seems obvious that Victor will be there.

He’s not.

Makkachin is.

Yuuri’s barely out of the shower when Makkachin’s happy bark echoes cheerily through the locker room and Victor’s oversized poodle is jumping towards him. The warm fluffy _very big_ dog hops towards Yuuri’s shoulders, dropping Yuuri down to the floor for easier face-licking and the high whining noise that Yuuri always interprets as _I’m trying to say hello and I love you._

Makkachin is sweet and loving and uncomplicated, and the only thing Makkachin wants from Yuuri is petting and cuddles, which Yuuri is so, so happy to provide. And Makkachin is such a good dog, waiting patiently with a wagging tail while Yuuri dries off and puts on some actual clothes and tries to look presentable.

He washes his face again, too – nothing against Makkachin, but ‘slobbered on by a happy dog’ isn’t the most put together appearance.

When he steps out of the locker room, Makkachin barking at his heels, it’s Victor’s turn to fight off his (ง'̀-'́)ง projection. Yuuri feels a little bad about the warm satisfied smugness that fills his heart when he watches Victor manage to survive for about one more second than Yuuri did before he’s kicked out of the holo-trainer.

Makkachin immediately rushes over to lick Victor’s face and whine those doggy  _I love you_ s at Victor, of course, and Victor is immediately cooing them right back, making ridiculous faces. It’s adorable.

And Victor looks up, smiling, and says Yuuri’s name like it’s a delightful surprise to see him, like Yuuri even being in the same room is a gift Victor never dared to hope he’d receive.

_This is worth it,_ Yuuri thinks, and smiles back.


End file.
